Chapter 31

The month of November found Briar returning from Covington. By early afternoon, he was fighting a gusty north wind. He walked with his head thrust forward as if he were searching for some unknown something he expected to find round the next turn. By late afternoon, he stopped halfway up the mountain to relieve a cramp the climb brought to his lower calf. He sat on a rock outcropping and leaned his back against the ground. Cold seeped through his jacket. He should have stolen a bit of copper wire to wrap around his ankles when he had to make more than one trip to Covington in a day. Keep on cramping and his calves would be strutted so big he couldn’t get his pants on.

A hickory nut dropped in front of him and rolled down the incline. It settled in a cluster of nuts resting in a bed of rust-tinged leaves. Early leaf colorings foretold that weather was turning toward winter, even had the nuts not attracted his attention. This winter would be bitter cold. Squirrels had been vigilant in storing nuts. Wooly worms were fat as Briar’s thumb. It would be a winter Tall Corn would have understood.

Briar longed to talk to his Cherokee father so he could learn more about who Silent Wolf was supposed to be. Two Tears kept busy so raising her herbs, collecting her ’sang and dropping babies that she had no time for him. He had become Silent Watcher, rather than Silent Wolf, as he wandered Turtleback. He often dropped wooden animals on the forest floor wherever he whittled them. One day when it was time for him to know his purpose on this mountain, he would collect those he could find. They, like some miniature totem, would speak to him. He would then understand who he was and why Two Tears had brought him to this place.

The wind eased into a bitter cold. Over Turtleback’s longest ridge, a solid bank of clouds, almost black, blocked the sun’s warmth. Briar pulled his jacket closed and buttoned the neck button. He then unbuttoned it. A true Cherokee would not strain against what Great Spirit sent. To prove himself qualified, he removed his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt’s neck. Though he stiffened himself against the air’s iciness, his body shook. In fairness to himself, he wrapped his arms around his chest and tucked his chin down on his chest.

To his right, a rustling of leaves caught Briar’s attention. Clearly not Cherokee. Whoever was walking this way was tromping without regard to what or whom he disturbed. Nearer now, someone slid on dry leaves, dropped and uttered a moan. Male. Tall, taller than Briar. It took longer for the man’s head to hit the forest floor than it would have taken Briar’s.

Briar straightened his back and looked over his shoulder. A boy, not yet twenty, lifted himself into a crouch and grabbed at the bag that lay by his side. His greasy hair touched the shoulder of his once-white shirt and hid his face. He combed his white ringlets back with his fingers. They snagged in the tangles. He pushed the hair behind his ears and looked at Briar.

His pasty face had burgundy blemishes from the sun and wind. His dry cheeks and lips puffed as if the skin were ready to split and slough away. A stark bone structure separated his eyes from his forehead. Briar turned easy to face him head-on.

Two more nuts fell. The boy jerked his head toward where the nuts hit the ground then back to Briar. His sinewy body tensed. His free hand grasped his throat as if he were trying to hold back words or strangle himself.

Briar stood and extended a hand to the boy to lift him up. Rather than take the hand, the boy rounded up on his knees and hoisted his weight up with his forearms.

“What you doing on Turtleback?” Briar said. “Great Spirit lost sight of you?”

The boy did not answer.

“I said, what you doing up here?”

The boy picked up his sack and hugged it to his chest.

Briar stepped forward. “Where you from?”

The boy tried to move back but staggered, never taking his gaze off Briar.

“Are you run away?” Briar moved a step closer.

Wind rose behind the boy and picked up leaves. They spun into an eddy. A squirrel scurried up a nearby oak. The boy crept backwards, tripped and caught himself with his free hand. He landed soft on a patch of moss.

“Are you dumb?” Briar asked.

The boy stared at Briar, then glanced left, then right.

Briar reached into his pocket and extended a closed fist. He opened his fist to expose a small, carved wolf. “I’m Silent Wolf,” Briar said. He shifted unconsciously into the more stilted language he recalled from his years with Tall Corn. “I will be your brother.”

The boy stared at the carving and nibbled on his lower lip.

“Take it. It’s yours. We will be brothers.” Briar moved closer.

The boy glanced over his left shoulder.

“It’s a wolf pup,” Briar said. The boy reached for the little wolf, then pulled back his hand. Briar waited. After a moment, the boy took the wolf pup and slipped it into his pocket.

Briar’s hand felt oddly bare. He had given his animals to the earth when he dropped them hither and yon, but he had never deliberately relinquished one of his animals. He had stepped into an alien land and was not sure which way to trod. He questioned if perhaps Great Spirit had guided him. Only his mother could speak with Great Spirit, so she said. So it must not be that. Why had he handed an animal over to a stranger? He should ask for it back. But no. He had gifted the wolf. It was no longer his. He would carve another, a better one.

Wind whistled up from the base of Turtleback telling Briar to move on. He glanced at the bag the boy held. “You can’t stay out here in this coming weather. Even Great Spirit’s animals ready for a blizzard.”

Briar glanced at the bag the boy held. “Where you live?” Briar asked.

The boy shrugged his shoulders and took the wolf cub from his pocket. He examined it and clasped his hand, hiding it in his fist.

“So. You can hear. You just ain’t talking,” Briar said. “You can’t stay out here in this coming weather. Big snow soon.” Briar turned toward orange sunrays that slid earthward under the cloudbank. “You ain’t got no place, you can come with me.” Briar walked south, toward Old Man Farley’s place. The boy followed, clutching his bag in one hand and the wolf cub in the other.

In the night, Briar returned with blankets, clothes much too large, matches, and food. The next morning, he took the boy by the hand and led him up a hidden path to Old Oak. He showed the boy how to climb and on which limb to sit so he could watch the comings and goings in the camp and on the road between Covington and Flatland.