9

BONES, HEATHER, DUNG, and trees all seem different, yet all of them are fuel, because they all have fire in them. So it is with times in our lives that seem different while they happen, yet are the same in the end. After I became a spirit and took animal forms, things happened that made me feel as unsure as I had felt when at last Meri and I found the Char River. When I was alone with Meri and the wolves at the Marten River, I rarely felt lonely but, surprising as it seemed, I became painfully lonely after I found the people again. By the time I understood why, it didn’t matter anymore, because I was only a spirit with no one to talk to except two other spirits who already knew everything I knew, and more.

One night after I became a spirit, there was nothing to hunt. Red deer were gathered at the fords on the south side of the swollen river, unable to swim across, but the animals of the north side, the bison, the reindeer, and even some of the horses, had long since started for their summer grazing on the steppe. Under the Icebreaking Moon, Teal’s trancing figure appeared in the air to beg for food.

“Bring deer,” begged Teal. “Make them swim the river so we can drown them. Red deer or reindeer, as long as we can eat.” So in the form of a hind I found myself alone, following a trail that wound among the low, scattered spruce that grew along the south side of the river. I raised my head and let the cold spring air, carrying the smells of spruce and meltwater, of lichen and other deer, pour through my head. I also smelled the bitter, heavy smell of the tigress, who had passed recently. Moving slowly, cautiously, I noticed how well the trail was made. When it led among the trees, where someone using it could not see clearly, it also led where the trees blocked the sound of the river, so although I couldn’t look for danger, I could listen for it. When the trail got near the river, where the rushing sound of water covered other sounds, it climbed a rise of ground. There, where I couldn’t hear danger, I could look for it.

I also noticed that the trail was very old. On a washout by the river, the hooves of passing deer had worn a groove in the stone. Beyond the washout, as the trail traversed a steep bank, the downhill side of the trail was pressed solid into a ledge that now held it firmly. For more time than anyone could know, hinds had passed this way in spring, hinds followed by their children and their children’s children, going up the river. Small paths led downhill to wallows near the water, and one small path led up the hill to—ah, its sweet smell came down the wind!—a pine. I hurried to it. Most of its bark was gone, and in places even the sweet-smelling wood had been rubbed away. No wonder! Eagerly I began to rub one side of my nose on it. Ah! The smell of other deer on the pinewood filled my head as I gently rubbed the skin around my eyes, making them tingle. Before opening them again I rubbed my forehead up and down. This felt so fine that I rubbed behind each ear very carefully, setting the crease against the wood, twisting to rub exactly around the curve. With my head feeling wonderful, I could rub my neck with force.

After that I couldn’t help but rub my body. Setting my feet firmly, I worked the whole length of each side, not stopping until my skin stung. A great rush of pleasure swelled my throat and made my eyes glaze. Very grateful to the deer whose safe trail led here and whose years of rubbing had made the wood just right, I finished with a thorough shake that left winter hair in piles at my feet, and filling my lungs with pine-scented air, I went along the trail almost dancing.

Soon I reached the ford, now a dangerous torrent. On a mudbank at the water’s edge a herd of hinds, some young, some old, some with yearlings, were waiting for the water to go down. Their milky, grassy smell filled me with comfort—traveling by myself, with no one to help keep watch, no one to bark a warning, put my nerves on edge and made me tired; I realized how good it would be to have company. Partly eager and partly shy, I approached them. But several of them raised their chins and looked at me out of the corners of their eyes. One snorted, and one lashed up at me with her front foot.

Disappointed, I stepped back to wait nearby quietly, modestly, my head held low. I nosed a tuft of grass and tried to watch the hinds without seeming to, hoping that they would change their minds and give me the safety of their herd. But they didn’t. They stood close together, mothers, daughters, and granddaughters, with their chins lifted and their nostrils flared, keeping me away with their eyes.

By night, when the river was lower, I felt so unwelcome, so uncomfortable, that I told myself the ford was safe, and to get away from the sidelong looks the other deer were giving me, I stepped into the water too soon. I was snatched downstream by the current and dashed against some rocks. Only by running as fast as I could, although there was nothing under my feet but water, did I manage to reach the far bank and drag myself out on it. Cold and bruised, I followed the deer trail up the moonlit terraces, knowing that all the eyes of the night were watching only me. Then it seemed that I had known all this before, when I was a girl with Meri and returned to the Char River.

 

The two pretty women sat up straight, and without trying to be friendly, slowly ran their eyes over Meri and me, waiting for us to explain ourselves. “I am Yanan,” I heard myself saying. “This is my sister. We are from here.”

The two young women showed each other puzzled frowns. “From here?” asked one of them. “How from here?”

“Our father, Ahi, belonged to this lodge.”

“Ahi?” asked the other woman. “I don’t know him.”

“Our aunt is Yoi and our cousins are The Stick and The Frog,” said Meri.

The two young women looked at each other. “We don’t know them,” said the first, with her chin raised and her tone very even. I saw she didn’t trust us.

Not here? I thought. Where can they be? Have new people taken over the lodge and killed our people? “I know the owners of this lodge,” I said at last, as bravely as I could. “Graylag, Child of Soossi, is the leader, and his wife, Teal Shaman, is our kinswoman. His daughter is Owl and his sons are Timu and Elho. His first wife is Ina, our father’s sister. I don’t know where the others are—Yoi and The Stick and The Frog—if, as you say, you don’t know them. But our parents are dead, so we are here. I am here to join Timu, my husband.”

“Your husband?” asked the first woman, who heard me out with slowly widening eyes. “He’s my husband! I’m Ethis, Timu’s wife.”

“And I’m Ankhi, her sister,” said the other, “wife of Elho.” She pressed her hands against her swollen belly. “And this is his child, in here.”

Meri leaned against me as the eyes of those beautiful sisters crept over us. We were dirty, we were thin, and our torn clothes, now far too small, showed that we had no people. Meri’s matted hair was stuck with burrs, and my scalp prickled as I thought of how tangled my own hair must be. It pained me to see Meri humbly gaping at these women, at their sleek braids, at their clean, smooth skin rubbed lightly with fat, at their rounded arms, their rounded legs, their ivory beads, their wedding clothes—more loosely styled than ours, especially through the hips, but new—and Ankhi’s rounded belly, where Elho’s child lay curled.

When I noticed that the two pretty women were scornfully returning Meri’s wistful stare, I remembered that I hadn’t told them her name. “My sister’s name is Meri,” I said, thinking how little this might interest them.

But Ethis said, “We know. When you told us who you were, we knew this girl must be your sister, no other than Meri.”

Too much was happening. These women were confusing me. All I could say was, “What?”

“When our uncle found that Meri was not here, he was angry,” said Ankhi, “but now that she’s here everything will be all right.”

“Your uncle? Meri? I don’t understand.”

“Ah,” said Ethis. “Graylag, Child of Soossi, told Uncle that you would be waiting here when we came. Now that we know your father died, we understand why you didn’t come before.”

These words made no sense. Why was a stranger waiting for Meri? “Is Graylag here?” I asked. “Are his wives? Is Timu? Elho? Owl and her husband? White Fox and his parents?”

“All are here,” said Ethis, “except White Fox’s parents, who stayed on the steppe. And Owl’s poor little baby, who died on the way.”

“Died? How?”

“Killed by The Woman Ohun. Last summer she sent us diarrhea.”

“Why did White Fox’s parents stay on the steppe? Did White Fox stay with them?”

“White Fox is here,” said Ethis. “His parents stayed with his sister, who is married. Her husband’s winter shelter is on the steppe.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“West of the Hair River cave,” said Ethis proudly. “We’d be there by now, but for you.”

The Hair River cave meant nothing to me. “I’m still young,” I said. “No one told me about that place. What have we to do with your going there?”

“Uncle won’t go now, since snow would come while he was traveling,” said Ethis.

“What has snow to do with her?” I asked sharply, thrusting my lips at Meri.

Ethis and Ankhi made long faces at my rudeness. “As Uncle came here to get her, he wouldn’t go back without her,” said Ethis. “They are betrothed.”

“Your uncle and Meri are betrothed?” I asked, shocked.

“Yes.”

“But she was betrothed already. Mother told me.” In fact, I remembered very well. It was one of the last things Mother ever said.

“Someone must have changed that,” said Ethis.

Suddenly Ankhi gave a little scream. Then she snatched up her ax. Startled, I turned to see the wolf pup tugging at some pieces of leather which had been rolled together in the coldtrap.

With axes and picks the two pretty women started for him, but little Meri, who had been sitting on her heels with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as small and thin as a frog and as ignorant of her own betrothal, suddenly jumped up and flung her arms wide. “Don’t hurt him!” she cried, as the pup picked up a leather scrap and ran with it.

Ethis and Ankhi looked at us with wide eyes. “Was that a spirit?” asked Ankhi.

“No, not a spirit,” I said, as a whole new set of problems rose in my mind’s eye. At the Marten, I had put in a treetop anything that a wolf might steal from us. Here, I saw, people might not think to do this until too late. More likely, they wouldn’t want to do it at all.

“Then what took the leather?”

I started to explain, but Meri spoke too quickly for me. “A pup,” she said. “A wolf pup. Mine.”

“Yours?” asked Ankhi, amazed. “What do you mean, yours?”

“Mine, like that ax is yours,” said Meri rudely. Now Ethis, Ankhi, and I all gaped at Meri, they no doubt because she was speaking childish nonsense—before you can own an animal you have to kill it, after all—and I because I had never heard her speak so boldly.

“Mind your tongue,” I said.

She gave me a long and bitter look, then ducked out the door. I dove after her, and just as I burst out the door I heard her scream.

What I saw outside stayed with me. Sometimes just before I fall asleep the scene flashes into my dream and makes my heart jump. I saw Timu spearing Meri.

How did this happen? When Elho and Timu came to the lodge, the pup ran out. Thinking that they had caught a thief, they kicked the pup to the ground and raised their spears to kill him. Just as Timu’s spear started down, Meri burst out of the coldtrap and threw herself over the pup. I screamed and covered my eyes, heard a terrible crunch, and uncovered my eyes to see that Timu, although he hadn’t been able to stop his spear, had managed to drive it into the earth and not into Meri.

For a moment nobody moved. Elho and Timu stared down at Meri. Timu started to tremble. Elho, his eyes and mouth wide open, looked stupidly around. When he saw me, he didn’t seem to know me. Meri, as if surprised to be alive, looked slowly up at Timu, then down at the pup. Pinned by Meri, the pup was trying to please somebody—his tongue flicked cautiously toward Meri’s face; the tip of his tail moved slightly.

Timu slowly drew his foot from under Meri. “By The Bear!” he said.

Meri got to her hands and knees. The pup got up carefully, then dashed away. Timu stared at Meri with a dazed expression. “By The Bear!” he said again. “You’re Meri!”

Meri nodded and began to cry. “You frightened me,” she said.

Timu’s anger came. “Frightened you?” he roared. “I almost killed you!”

Elho recovered first. He put his hand on Timu’s shoulder. “No one is hurt,” he said reasonably. “Be calm until we see what’s happening.” He looked over my head—I turned to look too—at Ethis and Ankhi, who had crept out of the coldtrap and were gaping at the scene. “Wife!” said Elho. “Please explain this.”

But Ankhi could only blink. Finally she asked, “Explain what?”

Surely I was the only person who knew what had happened and why we were all staring numbly at each other, yet no one even seemed to notice me. Suddenly my heart filled with relief at the familiar sight of Elho and Timu. And suddenly the sight seemed very funny—everyone looking as puzzled as bison, with the two men scowling at their wives as if these women were somehow to blame. I began to laugh. “You should see yourselves!” I said. “Timu! Your beard grew! Your mouth looks like a bear’s den in a bank. You don’t know me. I won’t tell who I am!”

Timu stared. “Yanan,” he said at last. “It’s you.”

“Yes, me,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Me and Meri. We came home.”

Timu straightened himself and pulled his spear out of the ground. “Have you eaten?” he asked as he examined his spear’s edge, which even from a distance I could see was chipped, being too brittle to be stabbed into the stony ground.

“No,” I answered.

“We’ll feed you, then,” he said. “And I’ll try to fix my spear. Maybe I can use it again. Come, Meri, you too.” And Timu led the way into the coldtrap.

At the back of the lodge the two pretty sisters built up Graylag’s fire, and we sat by it. As Timu and Elho cut meat and lay strips on the coals, the two women began to chatter, feeling safe because their husbands knew us.

“We’re sisters from the cave on the Hair River,” said Ethis. “I’m the elder. Ankhi is the younger.” She looked at Timu shyly. “We were married the summer before, when our husbands came with Graylag to hunt with our uncle.”

“We don’t know that place,” I said, then added, lest my remark sound like a challenge, “I haven’t traveled far.”

“The Hair joins the Black River out on the steppe,” said Timu importantly. “We found our wives among the people hunting mammoths there. Now you have a co-wife,” he added softly, very much surprising me with his tone. Did he feel shy with me? “But where are your parents?” he went on, the shy tone vanishing. “Where are The Stick and The Frog? Where is Yoi? And what is this wolf? Meri, you were almost killed!”

“My wolf,” said Meri.

“Yours? How so? Isn’t he living?”

“Living,” said Meri, “but mine.”

“How is it, then, you call him yours?”

“I don’t know,” said Meri. “But he is.”

“Do you see this?” asked Timu, showing her the spear’s broken blade. “Do you see what you’ve done? Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Meri, growing timid again.

“Your sister will explain everything,” said Timu, turning to me.

So I told them of Mother’s death and Father’s injury, and how The Stick, The Frog, and Yoi, feeling unwelcome by the spirits of the Pine River lodge, had left us there. As I talked, I heard the tick, tick, tick of Timu’s antler chisel picking a new edge on his spear. But although he was working, he was listening. When I told of Father’s death, his chipping stopped. “And then what happened to you?” he asked. “Who took care of you? Who brought you here?”

I said nothing for a moment, because I didn’t know exactly how to answer. When I thought about the lodge on the Marten and the she-wolf who once had used it, I couldn’t find the words to make it all sound right. It now seemed strange even to me. “We took care of ourselves,” I said at last. “First we went to the old lodge of Father’s people on the Marten River, and when the summer was over we came here.”

At this Timu and Elho and their new wives laughed and praised us, and handed around the strips of roasted meat. Meri took her share and slipped outside with it. “What has happened about Meri?” I asked. “Ethis said she’s betrothed to a man from the Hair River. But she can’t be. She was betrothed to White Fox long ago. Mother told me.”

“Perhaps she was,” said Timu. “That’s changed. She is now betrothed to Swift.”

Then Timu told me that Swift, away for the day with Graylag, was a shaman from the mammoth hunters. Some of his kinsmen were also Graylag’s kinsmen, as Graylag had guessed when he and Father parted. Swift was one of the first people Graylag had met after leaving us at the Fire River, and he and Graylag had become close friends. But Swift wanted to become closer still to Graylag.

The winter hunting on the Hair River was never good because animals used the plain only in summer, said Timu. Swift’s own winter hunting lands were good some years but bad other years. Swift wanted some of his people to come to the Char, where the winter hunting was steadier. And Graylag liked the summer hunting at the Hair. “You never saw so much meat!” said Timu. So Swift and Graylag decided to join their lodges with an exchange of women.

Swift was an important hunter, a man of meat, said Timu. He should have had two wives, but in fact he had no wife, since he was divorced, and some of his children were dead. Swift caused Ethis and Ankhi to be given to Timu and Elho. In return he asked for a wife from the lineage of Sali Shaman. Only Meri was still unmarried, so Meri was given.

I asked how Graylag could have promised Meri when, for all he knew, Father and Mother were still living. He couldn’t, of course, said Timu. And he hadn’t. All he could do was persuade White Fox’s parents to take White Fox out of the betrothal. When Swift promised to find a wife for White Fox, and when Junco married one of Swift’s kinsmen at the Hair River, White Fox’s parents gladly broke his betrothal and planned to take back from Mother the flint knife and the necklace with pendants given to her in the wedding exchange. Swift, of course, would have given Mother many good presents in place of the knife and necklace. “Your mother didn’t know Swift,” said Timu. “He would have given her very nice gifts, and she would have liked him. Anyway, now Meri is free. Since your parents are dead, Swift will give his gifts to Teal and you. And you can share with me.”

I listened to this very sadly, not wanting to tell Timu that the very gifts he had named were now in Mother’s grave. In a while I went outside.

Far down the terrace, among a cluster of little trees, I saw the tiny form of Meri sitting on her heels, sucking her thumb. I went to sit with her. From her free hand dangled a thin strip of meat. Presently the pup came back, his ears folded humbly, and after looking to see if anyone dangerous was near but seeing only us, he crept forward to beg for a bite. Meri fed him. He gulped the meat.

We sat in silence as the shadows of the little trees reached far over the grass. Ravens flew from the east, circled, landed on the grass, and called. Presently a man appeared on a trail from the east—he whom the ravens had been circling. The pup dashed away. The man was Graylag; we knew his walk from afar. He stopped when he saw us to squint at us curiously. Then his white teeth appeared in his beard and he hurried toward us, laughing. “Aha! My children!” he called. “I wondered when you’d come. Welcome!” As we stood up to greet him, his rough palm raked the top of my head, pulling my hair. I would have told him our story, but in his quick, determined way he was already starting for the lodge. “I’ll greet your father,” he said, and hurried off. Meri and I sat down again.

I watched the wind move a little herd of clouds across the sky. When it brought the sound of someone else walking toward us, I turned and saw a big, strange man.

As if I suddenly saw a lion, his looks gave me a fright. His two eyes were pale, like a lion’s eyes but blue, and his hair was the color of dry grass. Like a lion, he looked as if he could hide in the grass. As he passed, peering at us, his shadowy face and blue eyes looked like a lion skin with two holes in it where the sky showed through. The sight of him frightened me, as one is always frightened by staring pale eyes.

At last he had to turn to save himself from stumbling. We watched him follow Graylag into the lodge. He must be Swift, I thought, and taking Meri by her free hand, I led her quietly to the entrance of the coldtrap so that I could hear what he and Graylag might say to each other.

The coldtrap carried voices as easily as a hollow log. Inside we heard the stranger complaining to Graylag with hard, rasping words like the speech of the strange men we had met near the Fire River. “Zhe is a baby, dirdy and sgrajd,” he said in his terrible accent. “Her clodes are in rags or mizzing. A woman who wend inzane had hair like her hair.”

“I’m sad,” said Graylag. “My son tells me that their father is dead. Their mother too.”

“Dead?” asked the stranger.

“He slept at this very hearth,” said Graylag. “He was given his wife because of our friendship, just as he would have given his daughter to you.”

“Your news is bad,” said the stranger in his ugly accent. “Now your people here are few. Your men are few, for hunting in winder.”

“Yanan!” said another voice behind us. We turned and saw White Fox, so tall that I almost didn’t recognize him. He even had a sparse beard starting, and his wrists stuck out of his sleeves. But he was White Fox just the same, carrying sticks for the night’s fire. He sat on his heels beside us, and when I told him about my parents, he sighed. “I too have no parents,” he said. “They stayed with Junco at the Hair River cave. I didn’t like the mammoth hunters, so I came back here. Graylag likes the mammoth hunters too much.” Pointing his lips at Meri, White Fox continued: “Her, Graylag took away from me to give to one of them. I am no longer betrothed.”

If I thought Meri didn’t understand about betrothal, I was wrong. Taking her thumb out of her mouth, she looked at White Fox steadily. “Was I going to marry you?” she asked.

White Fox nodded. “Yes,” he said.

“Were you going to marry me?” asked Meri.

White Fox nodded a second time.

“When?”

He had to think. “Later. After you grew up. When you were no longer a baby.”

Meri put her thumb back in her mouth and sucked it, watching White Fox thoughtfully. He shifted his weight uneasily, then stood. “Now that you’re here, you both can help me bring firewood,” he said. “If you do, I’ll tell you about the Hair River. Come.” He tucked his ax into his belt and started for one of the trails.

I followed, but Meri stood still. After a while she called, “White Fox!” He turned. “Don’t call me a baby. You’re the baby,” said Meri.

 

At dusk homecoming people wound through the valley in single file. Like a herd of deer spotting something hidden in the grass, they stopped in their tracks at the sight of us. Teal wept and hugged both Meri and me, then hurried inside with the others to find Mother and the rest of our group, leaving a strange woman outside, a tall, thin woman dressed in wide trousers. She too had pale, narrow eyes, which watched us suspiciously for a moment before she followed the others.

The strange woman, I gathered from listening through the coldtrap, was Swift’s half-sister. The rest of the people seemed to call her Rin. Then I heard Swift breaking sticks for a fire near the door, at the place that once was Father’s fire, so I understood that this place was now the strangers’ fire, and I wondered where Meri and I would sleep.

In the gathering dusk the wolf pup crept up to us, testing the air, which carried the smell of cooking meat. Darkness fell. In the woods across the river an owl called, one low, trembling note for each of the four fingers of my right hand, then, after a pause, one for each of the four fingers of my left hand. We heard a lion very far away on the plain behind us, above the valley, answered by another lion, much nearer. I tried to think how long it had been since we had last heard lions in the Char valley. Lions made me think of the steppe, of long grass, of summer. We heard them on our summergrounds, not on the Char. Then Teal called sharply: “Meri! Yanan! What are you doing out there? Why don’t you come?” So we crawled in.

Graylag and the strangers were all talking at once about the change in obligations, now that my parents were no longer living to receive Meri’s betrothal gifts. Meri and I could not quite fit into the circle at Graylag’s fire, because the adults filled all the space. Of course we wouldn’t have thought of joining Swift and Rin at the fire near the door. Instead we sat with White Fox behind Mother’s kinswoman, Teal, and Father’s sister, Ina. I was surprised to hear Ina weeping softly. And I was surprised that Teal didn’t speak to me but stared into the fire. Then it came to me that the news we brought was their first news of my parents’ death, and I saw how they were grieving.

I might have taken Teal’s hand or leaned against her to show I shared her feeling. But White Fox began to tell us under his breath about Teal at the Hair River. “There’s a wide place in the river below the cave,” he said, “where mammoths wallow. Their shed hair floats and when dust blows over it, it looks like solid ground. Your Aunt Teal almost walked on it. The people warned her just in time. But what if she fell in? You know how she walks.” White Fox raised his chin and drew back his shoulders imitating, right behind Teal’s back, her proud stance. “I said, ‘Don’t listen to them, Aunt. Walk where you like!’ Not out loud, of course.”

I felt deeply ashamed when Teal heard us snickering. “Give me your comb,” she said quietly. “I’ll do your braid for you!” So I sat humbly between Teal’s knees, biting my lip as the comb raked through the knots and tangles. “In the morning we’ll start new clothes for you,” said Teal as if nothing was the matter. “You can help. We have a skin. Graylag will give you another skin. We must ask Timu and Swift for skins. They must give skins for your clothes now.” And so she talked until my braid was done. Now it was too late for me to take her hand, or to show my feelings. I was sorry about that. But I also liked it that she was brave, in the way of the Fire River women.

People began to roll themselves into their deerskin blankets, ready for the night. I didn’t know where Meri and I should sleep, and nobody told me. I would have liked to sleep with Teal, but she went to her place beside Graylag, leaving no room for us. The only space Meri and I could find was in front of the coldtrap, where no one else wanted to be.

I woke up before dawn to see Graylag sitting at the fire by the door, where he used to sit with Father, only now he was with Swift. They had the last of a reindeer carcass between them, and were cutting little strips off it with their knives. I could smell the strong, bloody smell of the raw meat, dead many days now, and the smell of some of it cooking. Seeing me awake, Graylag laid a fresh piece on the fire and gestured to it with his knife. He meant it for me. When I opened my mouth to thank him, I noticed, in the opening of the coldtrap, the outline of the wolf pup, its ears and fur lit from behind by the dawn light. Graylag glanced at the pup without much surprise. Swift glanced too. “What does it eat?” he wondered aloud.

Graylag lifted a strip of meat from the fire and handed it to Swift. “Feces, bones, the same as—” he began, but he never finished, because the pup darted forward, snatched the meat from Swift, and dashed out the coldtrap.

Graylag gaped in amazement as Swift leaped to his feet. “I’ll kill him!” Swift roared in his frightening accent. “Will wolves grab my food?” And seizing his spear, he lunged after it.

“No!” screamed Meri. Before I could catch her, she leaped from our sleeping-skin and caught the shaft of the spear.

Swift must have been holding it loosely while moving forward quickly—the spear slid through his hand, and the blade sliced his fingers across the first joints. “By The Bear!” he roared, looking at his palm. Then he turned to Meri. Still clutching the shaft, she glanced in terror around the lodge. Then, as the trailing spear scattered the burning branches, she leaped over the fire and ducked out the door.

“She burned me!” cried narrow-eyed Rin in the harsh accent of the mammoth hunters, slapping coals from her legs.

“Stop Meri,” cried Teal.

“My spear!” roared Swift, and plunged into the coldtrap.

“Don’t hurt Meri!” I shouted, scrambling after him, trying to catch his shirt.

Meri could run like a deer since her legs had grown long, and now she did, dashing for the woods, with Swift close behind her. I ran right after him; the tail of his shirt was just out of my grasp. “Wait! Please!” I shouted above the yammering of all the other people who seemed to be chasing me. Just as Swift reached out for Meri, she dropped the spear. The shaft bounced up between his legs. The next thing I knew, he and I were rolling on the ground with the spear clattering beside us. For a terrible moment we stared at each other, open-mouthed.

Then I felt myself rising. Timu was lifting me by the back of my shirt. Everyone had gathered around to stare at Swift, who didn’t get up until Graylag helped him to his feet. Then Graylag picked up the spear and handed it to Swift who, turning his back on the rest of us, walked stiffly, limping slightly, toward the lodge. “He’s hurt!” cried Rin.

Then everyone began to talk at once, gesturing and interrupting each other as they followed him. Although Timu wouldn’t relax his grip on my shirt, I managed to twist around in time to see a very frightened Meri steal from behind a little spruce and slowly walk toward us. Elho and White Fox ran to her and caught her arms, although she was coming back without even being called, let alone forced.

Inside the lodge the din was terrifying. “Yanan hurt my half-brother!”

“She burned me!”

“She did it for a wolf!”

“The wolf must be killed!”

“She burned my feet!”

“Timu should have stopped her!”

“Swift forgot himself!”

“She frightened me!”

“He threatened Meri!”

“His betrothed cut all his fingers!”

Above the din I heard myself shout, “She isn’t his betrothed! We hate him!”

There was an instant of terrible silence before the noise began again, but now Swift’s ugly voice suddenly yelled above the others, “If she has a husband, let him take her outside and beat her with a stick!”

Quickly people began agreeing or protesting, each person trying to drown the others out. Terrified by all that was happening and by what might happen next, I cowered with Meri near the wall. Suddenly Timu stepped toward me and reached out his hand. “Come!” he roared. I clung to Meri. Timu seized my arm. I kicked and struggled as he pulled one way while Meri, screaming, pulled the other way. Then, as he dragged us both toward the door, Meri let go of my arm, threw herself at Timu’s leg, and bit him. He gripped her jaw and stared into her eyes. “You wait,” he said dangerously. “I’m coming back for you. Ethis! Keep her here.” Ethis hurried to catch Meri while Timu dragged me out the door. Many of the others tumbled after us to watch us leave. “Let no one touch Meri,” called Timu over his shoulder. “Just hold her. I’ll take care of this.”

Kicking and biting, hitting Timu with my free hand or catching at bushes, I fought for every step, but Timu dragged me down the trail to the riverbank, not seeming to notice my bites and blows. There, in a sheltered place hidden from sight of the lodge by a clump of willows, he sat on his heels and pulled me down beside him. He looked at me for a moment, then brushed my hair back from my face. “So,” he said gently. “Be calm.” As I stared in surprise at the change in him, he put his hand on mine. Taking a deep breath, he looked straight into my face and said, “Those mammoth hunters, they are quarrelsome. I liked hunting with them, but I could hardly believe some of the things my eyes saw in their camps. How could I hurt you? Aren’t you my wife? Won’t you soon sleep in my deerskin?”

“What about Meri?” I asked, out of breath.

“Who will harm her? Not my wife’s people. They beat their own kin, but they wouldn’t dare beat strangers. Anyway, it’s you he wants beaten. You knocked him down. You said you hated him.”

“But will you punish Meri like you said?”

Timu looked surprised. “When did I say that? Or do you think me a man who would hurt a child? No, the mammoth hunters are different from us—among the mammoth hunters grown men strike people weaker than themselves. We’ll wait until everyone grows calm.”

No longer frightened of Timu, I grew angry with him. “Why did you drag me here? You made me hit you, and you twisted my arm!”

“Is this your gratitude?” asked Timu crossly. “Would you rather I left you in the lodge for them to punish you?” He sighed. “We must stop all this trouble now,” he added. “We didn’t used to have such fighting. Even on the last day you were with us, your father left for his old home rather than quarrel with anyone. Your father lived with us in peace.”

We fell silent, my anger fading as I thought of my father and thought what a true thing Timu had said. “Why did you marry one of them?” I asked after a time.

“Ethis is a good woman,” said Timu. “You’ll come to like her. She and I will have children, and you and I will have children. Our people will be many, and we will live in peace, here or in a new lodge. You’ll see.”

We heard pounding feet. Someone was running toward us. As we stood up to look, tear-streaked Meri burst through the willows with a hafted ax raised high. “Stop!” I shouted. Timu danced aside just as Meri drove the ax into the earth where his feet had been.

He caught her hand and took the ax out of it. “This must stop,” he said. “We’re people, not animals. Let’s remember ourselves.”

More people were running. In a moment Graylag came through the willows, looking very worried. Teal ran right behind him, out of breath, followed by Ethis, in tears. “Meri has an ax,” they cried. But Meri was clutching me around the waist, sobbing.

Timu stood beside us, the ax dangling from his hand. “What are we beginning in this lodge?” he asked. “We chase each other, we fight, my second wife’s kinsman tells me to beat Yanan, someone gets an ax. We didn’t used to talk of beating each other. Even small children would listen to reason. Have we found something so hard that we can’t use reason? Or have my wife’s people come to command us?” He gestured toward pretty Ethis, who looked dismayed.

“We must talk, but calmly,” said Graylag. “Your wife’s people mean well. They don’t know us yet. We must understand that. And you’re right. Reason must command us now.”

Timu’s father and stepmother leading, I followed him toward the lodge. “Well, Timu,” said Teal over her shoulder, “a small child almost chopped your leg with an ax. You should think before you say you’ll beat someone. You acted rashly.”

“Yes, Stepmother,” answered Timu with a sigh.

“The trouble is dying down now, Wife,” warned Graylag. “Let’s not raise it again.” He added, “We hear lions every night now. These screams could draw them here.”

But more screaming was to come—when we reached the lodge, we found that while we were all out running and fighting, the wolf had stolen the last scraps of our meat. Now nearly everybody wanted to kill the wolf. Meri began to cry helplessly, until I had to pound her between the shoulders.

Teal clapped her hands, exasperated. “No more talk of killing!” she said. “We’ve had enough trouble. Three times people have risked their lives for this wolf. Are we to harm a person for an animal? Timu was almost killed because of the trouble. Rin was burned. Swift was hurt. We will stop now. No more.”

As there was no food in the lodge, Graylag, Timu, White Fox, and Swift got ready to hunt red deer at the ford far down the river where, when the water is low in the fall, the deer swim across. The hunters took their sleeping-skins as if they would be gone for the night. The rest of the people followed the trail along the terrace toward the bushes where bearberries grew, Meri and I behind them. Just as I was about to go around the first bend of the trail, I heard Graylag call me. Stopping, I looked around. He beckoned me back. I obeyed, with Meri following, and we stood respectfully in front of him. “Take axes,” he said, “and go cut a fresh pine tree for the door. You chose this wolf. Don’t let it rob us.”

So we took axes, crossed the river on its bare rocks, and went into the woods. Selecting a small spruce that we could cut by sundown, we began to chop. Thinking that we should not return without a tree, we didn’t rest in our work, even to gather food. But the tree wouldn’t fall until after sundown. We dragged it home, hoping that someone would give us bearberries, but no one had thought to gather any for us and we went to sleep hungry.

In bed Meri started to sniffle. “Stop it! People are tired of your crying,” I whispered. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been hungry, and it won’t be the last.” But before I finished my whisper, Meri fell asleep. She looked small and childish with her lips parted and her hands curled. Who would have thought she was fierce?