He fell hard, the impact jarring his tortured body. Cold, so terribly cold. The hurt seemed to cause a ringing in his ears. Spent, he struggled to stand, struggled to . . . Consciousness faded.
Elk Charm sat on the uncomfortable hardness of a worn boulder where it stuck out of the hillside. She could see the length of the valley where it ran southeast out of the Buffalo Mountains and down to the distant hogbacks. An abrupt ridge hid the far horizon she'd memorized that evening she'd sat next to Little Dancer—and finally coupled with him. Until the day she died, she'd remember the look in his eyes as he stared out over the plains. A premonition of trouble; pain at what he'd left behind; confusion; it had all come together in the set of his face. What a cruel legacy.
Now the final shadows of the terrible snow melted out of the stands of timber on the north slopes. Below, in the valley, the creek ran full with runoff, white water dashing and crashing around the oxbows of the broad valley. The willows had gone viridian in the warm sun. About her, grasses shot lush spikes of leaves up through the brown clump of last year's growth. Life had come again to the mountains—and found only a barren grayness in her heart.
The delicate yellow heads of sagebrush buttercup and purple shooting star added no color to the drabness of her thoughts. Not even the calls of the rosy finches and the flocks of juncos could dent the lingering edges of her grief. Little Dancer's memory suffused her life. His words ghosted through her ears. She saw his face, the way his smile went from serious to irreverent. Her body tingled with the lines of his caress. Her loins ached for him, knowing his light had flickered and gone dim in the world.
Worse, she dared not think of him, how his body must look as it melted out of the snow. She'd seen her father, she knew.
“There you are."
She'd missed his approach.
"Mind if I sit down?"
She shrugged, looking up listlessly.
Two Smokes grunted as he lowered himself, making room for his game leg. He pulled his good knee up, hugging it in the loop of his arms. "Spring has finally made it. I'd come to think we'd spend the rest of our lives staring at each other. Have you noticed how everyone has disappeared over the last couple of days? That comes of living with each other for too long in the same shelter."
She said nothing.
"I think what we'll do is when everyone gets back, we'll move over to the west side. I know some wonderful places over there that have a spectacular view. You can see right across the basin, for maybe ... I don't know, four days' hard walk, to the mountains on the other side. Good grass up there. Lots of sego lily and balsam root for the digging. Yampa's pretty thick, too. We could find one of those valleys cut down through the cap rock. Lots of shelters there so people don't have to crowd together. Another winter with those children and I think I'd rather slit my wrists with dull quartzite."
She swallowed at the lump in her throat, wishing she could talk back—finding no words in the desert of her thoughts.
"There's a good deal of wood, too. Won't be so long a hike to pack it back as we had this year. I know of a couple of excellent sheep traps. Used to be buffalo down in the basin, but that's a lot of packing to get the meat back up to the shelters."
She traced the path of a red-tailed hawk as it danced on the air currents. Before long, the ground squirrels would be out, wary of the hawk's sweeping flight. For now, the hawk waited, seeking instead any red squirrel or unwary cottontail.
"You know," Two Smokes added kindly, "I'd like to know what you feel. I can't bring him back; berdache don't have that kind of Power, but maybe we could talk. It might make his spirit rest easier."
Her insides wilted and she could feel her chin quivering. Blessed Wise One, did it have to hurt so badly?
"All my life, I cared for him." Two Smokes shook his head, the gray in his braids glinting silver in the sun. "I can't figure. It used to be that I could feel the link between the Wolf Bundle and Little Dancer. That Power feeling, you know?"
She reached for his hand, feeling the warmth of his skin under her fingers.
"It's my fault," Two Smokes added. "I failed both the Wolf Bundle and Little Dancer. I should have stood that night . . . and run a dart clear through Heavy Beaver. They might have killed me for it, but I could have washed the insult in Heavy Beaver's blood first. Sage Root would have seen that the boy got the Wolf Bundle. Maybe I could have saved us from all of this."
"It's not your fault," she managed. "Two Smokes, you did the best you could. No one can know the future. People just have to do the best they can."
"Perhaps. Maybe we can't know the future, but the past is forever. How are you feeling? What's in your heart?"