She nodded. “I thought that once you had figured out what I’d done, you would call a village council meeting and Starflower would order a war party to hunt Rumbler and me down.”
“She did,” Blue Raven said. He released his hold on her, and sank to the ground. “At least that’s what I’ve heard, and I believe it. I’m sure that when Starflower discovered both of us missing, as well as the False Face Child, she went a little mad. I would have if I’d been her. I think I might have even sent word to neighboring—”
“What do you mean, she discovered both of us missing?”
He ran a hand through his hair. Patches of moonlit snow mottled the forest behind him. Wren’s gaze scanned each one, looking for movement, expecting to see warriors streaming out of the shadows.
Blue Raven said, “I woke and found Rumbler gone, then I saw the drag marks where you had hauled him off Lost Hill, and I thought that if I could find you before morning, and bring you and Rumbler back, maybe no one would ever find out what you’d done.”
Wren sat cross-legged in the trail in front of him, her head bowed. The white spirals on her blue shirt shone in the moonlight. “But you didn’t find me by morning.” She looked up. “What happened then?”
“I got to the Traders’ canoe landing, and had to make a decision.”
“You came after me?”
He stroked her hair and smiled, but it was a sad smile. “I couldn’t let you face this alone, Wren.”
Wren looked away. In the valley below, the ruins of Paint Rock Village lay quiet. She could imagine the horrors glowing in the moonlight.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Uncle,” she insisted. “We did. Our clan did. We should never have stolen Rumbler.”
“I agree, you know I do. But there is more to it, now.” He stretched his back as if it hurt. “You and I—and Rumbler—need to think this whole thing through. Where is the False Face Child?”
Wren twined her hands tightly in her lap.
“Wren?” Uncle Blue Raven tipped her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “I want you to listen carefully. I have heard … things … and I suspect they are true.”
“What things?”
“I have heard that you and I are both under death sentences.”
“But why you, Uncle? Why—”
He held up a hand. “Think, Wren. It was snowing heavily the night we left. But you and Rumbler left perhaps two hands of time before I did. What our clan found in the morning were my tracks leading away from Lost Hill. What would you assume?”
“That—that you had taken the boy?”
“Of course. To make matters worse, anyone following me will have seen that I met with two people, and will certainly assume that I must have planned—”
“But Uncle! We can run away!” She clutched weakly at the elk hide tied over his shoulders. “We don’t have to go back to Walksalong Village!”
Blue Raven smiled, and lightly touched her forehead. “Your life is there, Wren. With your nation, and your clan. Don’t you want to go home?”
Her belly knotted. She smoothed her hands on the soft elk fur, and let the warm fires and laughter of the longhouses drift through her souls. “It’s all I’ve dreamed about, Uncle, but I don’t think I will ever be able to.”
“Well, I think there is a way.”
Fearfully, she asked, “What?”
He clasped one of her hands. “I can explain my way out of this. I was just following you. But you have no excuse. You are guilty of the crime you are accused of. The only way to convince the matrons to reverse their order …”
Hazy forms emerged from the darkness, and tramped up the trail toward them. Blue Raven heard them and said, “Ah. Finally.”
The man had waist-length white hair with an owlish face and beaked nose. His mud-spattered pants and coat almost blended with the shadows. The woman wore a hooded cape, but within the hood Wren could see a wrinkled face and thick gray braid.
“Great gods,” the man said, “your niece can run.”
“You’d run, too,” the woman panted, “if you thought a war party was after you.”
Wren looked at the two strangers. They were not of the Bear Nation. Their clothes bore Turtle Clan markings. To her uncle, she whispered, “Who are they?”
Blue Raven held a hand out to the woman, and said, “This is Matron Dust Moon from Earth Thunderer Village, and this is Silver Sparrow. I know you’ve heard of him. They have come to take Rumbler home with them.”
Wren glanced back and forth between her uncle and the Turtle people. That’s what he’d meant when he talked about meeting with two people. Confusion ate at her souls. Only moments ago, she had thought her uncle was going to tell herthat they had to take Rumbler back to Walksalong Village, but now she didn’t know what he’d meant.