People of the Masks(139)
Sparrow pulled the elk hide down, exposing their faces to the falling snow. Moonlight gleamed through the thin layer of clouds, reflecting from the lake below. “I don’t know if this storm is going to last much longer. We’d better pack up and start walking. I just wish I knew which direction we should head.”
Dust sat up. “I’ve been thinking about that. Sparrow, when Little Wren broke and ran last night, do you think she could have been trying to draw us away from that shelter?”
She pulled her hair over her shoulder, divided it into three parts and began braiding it.
He held her gaze. “You mean you think Rumbler is still there? Gods, I pray not.”
“Why?”
“That shelter is visible from Paint Rock Village. When Grandfather Day Maker rises, that’s the first place Jumping Badger will look.”
“Then shouldn’t we look first?”
Sparrow sat up. “It’s too dangerous, Dust. There will be guards stationed all around the village, watching for any movement, and they are definitely hunting us. You heard what Blue Raven told the woman warrior last night. About selling Rumbler to us.”
“Yes, that was quick thinking on his part.” She finished her thick braid, and searched the snow for the cord she’d removed last night. As she tied it to the end of the braid, she said, “I certainly misjudged him, didn’t I?”
“Well,” he said softly, “it isn’t always easy to know what people will do when pushed.”
“But it did not even occur to me that he might be willing to sacrifice himself to save Little Wren.”
“He surprised me, too, though I should have expected what he did.”
She pulled the elk hide up to her chin and looked at Sparrow. “What do you mean?”
“What would you have done, Dust? If Rumbler had been accused of betraying his people, and you knew that he believed he had done the right thing, wouldn’t you offer your life for his? To keep that innocence alive in the world?”
A white cloud of exhaled breath condensed before her. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I suppose I would.”
Sparrow brushed the snow from his hair, and his bushy brows drew together. “Dust, we need to start thinking about how we’re going to escape. Thus far we’ve been concerned solely with finding Rumbler. But he can’t be far. We will find him, and once we do, we have to know what comes next.”
Her gaze flitted over the hilltop, skimming the trees, and rocks, trailing down to the lakeshore. A thin band of scalloped sand separated the water and the snow. “You don’t think the war party will be satisfied with capturing the ‘traitors’?”
“No. At first light, they’ll begin torturing Blue Raven, trying to find out where Rumbler is—where you and I are taking him, and then they’ll be on our trail like a pack of wolves after a wounded deer.”
“But Blue Raven knows we don’t have Rumbler, and even if we did, he has no idea where we might take him.”
Sparrow straightened the hide to shield their exposed feet. When he spoke, he couldn’t keep the fear from his voice. “He’ll lie, Dust. He’ll tell them whatever he thinks they want to hear. Maybe not today, but surely by tomorrow night. And even if, by some miracle, he doesn’t, Little Wren will be watching. When she sees her uncle suffer, she will tell Jumping Badger anything he wants to know.”
Sympathy creased her face. “Poor Little Wren. Sparrow, maybe—”
“Stop thinking about it. The task ahead is difficult enough without attempting to take on an entire war party.”
Dust jerked a nod, and brushed at the snow on the hide. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but I know you’re right.”
Dust shook out the elk hide and began rolling it up.
Sparrow picked up his bow and quiver—he’d slept with them next to him under the hide—and slung them over his right shoulder. Then he reached for their packs. As he handed Dust’s to her, he said, “I know the girl risked her life for Rumbler, but—”
“Every instant we spend worrying about Little Wren is one less instant we will have to think about Rumbler. We have to concentrate, or none of us will make it out of this. So …” She slipped her pack on. “What is our escape plan?”
Sparrow took the rolled hide and tied it to the top of his pack. “The closest village is Sleeping Mist. If we find Rumbler, I think we should—”
“But they were just recently attacked, Sparrow. Their foodstores may have been raided. They will be drowning in grief. If I were one of the elders there I’m not sure I would appreciate strangers running in out of the darkness and asking me for shelter.”