Blue Raven’s gaze followed Wren’s trail. She seemed to be heading for the Traders’ canoe landing up above the falls.
Blue Raven hurried. In less than two hundred paces, the trail vanished in a meadow. Dancing Man River ran wide and blue in front of him.
Blue Raven labored on, paralleling Wren’s tracks for as long he could see them, then trying to guess the logical course she would have taken … straight across the meadow, into the towering trees, and onto the beaten path along the shore. Everyone walks the Dancing Man River Trail. It’s a major route between villages.
He had to force his way through a thorny bramble of sumac and raspberries to reach the path. Obviously Wren would not have crossed here, but he expected to find her tracks up ahead. Deer had trampled the snow, packing the trail. Drifts blew across it in places, but the walking would be much easier. Blue Raven headed north.
Light slanted through the naked trees, throwing a wavering golden patchwork across the snow. Here, beside the river, the smell of damp earth rose powerfully.
Wren might have been determined when she’d cut Rumbler loose, but exhaustion must be setting in now. Exhaustion and the realization of what she’d done, the terrible judgment she’d used. She’d probably rehearsed the fate of every girl in Walksalong who’d ever done anything wrong. Some had been Outcast, a few had been killed. Their faces and names fluttered through Blue Raven’s souls: Running Doe, Meadow Leaf, poor little Caprock. Wren must be more lonely and desperate than she’d ever been in her life.
Blue Raven kicked his way through a drift, praying she would have the good sense to turn around … and … he heard a voice.
He held his breath and scanned the shadowy forest. It had been faint, but clear. Sweet, joyous laughter. As if a child hid in the forest, watching his progress with amusement. Blue Raven searched the brush and tree limbs. In his hurry, his eyes almost passed over the Traders’ canoe landing. “Oh, Wren, no. Tell me you didn’t.”
He ran toward the place where the Traders always pulled their canoes up on shore.
He saw it. Wren’s trail came out of the forest, and onto the landing.
“Oh, for the sake of the ancestors! Wren?” he shouted, and whirled around. “Wren!”
Four canoes lay beached on the gravel.
But there had been five at dawn. He could see her moccasin prints, and the scratched gravel where she’d pushed the boat into the water.
Blue Raven closed his eyes. He had to think. He could continue his pursuit, or return to the village, and ask the matrons to authorize a search party. Twenty warriors could certainly find her more quickly than he could. But he knew Wren. She would hide from them, using all the skills he’d taught her. Which meant things would go much worse for her when they finally dragged her back to Walksalong Village.
But if Blue Raven found her first, he might be able to convince Wren to return of her own free will. Such an act would appeal to the matrons’ aging hearts.
He prayed.
A slim red canoe sat on the far right, a paddle lying inside. Blue Raven shoved it into the water.
Sparrow led the way, wading into the snow, packing it down with his moccasins. His legs had been shaking since noon, when they’d dragged their canoe ashore and hidden it in a pile of brush.
“Not much farther, Dust.”
Panting, she answered, “That’s what … you said … a hand of time ago.”
“That was just to keep you going. I’m telling you the truth this time.”
Her feet crunched snow. He forced his own legs to keep climbing.
The pines along the route drooped mournfully beneath the weight of snow; several limbs had broken off, others touched the ground. Every time the cold breeze blew, they squealed and groaned.
Sparrow crested a windblown hilltop, and spread his legs to keep his knees from buckling. Below him, the blue waters of the Dancing Man River emptied into the deep green expanse of Pipe Stem Lake. Walksalong Village sat on the opposite shore, its tall palisade a rough oval around the six longhouses. A fire blazed in the middle of the plaza. Sparrow sucked in a breath and stepped behind the trunk of an old oak. From this distance, only the keenest eyes would spot them through the intervening tangle of trees, but he didn’t wish to risk it. There had to be sixty or seventy people standing around that fire. Maybe more.
Dust came up beside Sparrow, breathing hard. She cautiously peered around the trunk at the village, and Wind Mother buffeted her fur-lined hood. “That’s a large fire for this time of day.”
“Yes. It is.”
She gave Sparrow a sidelong look. “If that were my village, I’d say the people looked nervous.”