Jumping Badger dove for a tree, wrapped his arms around the trunk, and shrieked at the top of his lungs.
He could hear Elk Ivory yelling, “Forget your packs! Find cover. Crawl under the nearest log!”
The storm raged for less than a finger of time, but when it passed, and Jumping Badger managed to dig his way out, he could not believe he still lived. He shouted, “Light a fire! Someone, hurry! Buckeye, I order you to light a fire!”
The lodges of the Night Walkers threw a pale silver light over the clearing where their fire had been. The hulking warrior Buckeye ran to the place where the pit had been and frantically began scooping snow away, trying to find it.
Every trace of their camp, every vestige of their lives, had been swept away.
Warriors began to emerge from the forest, brushing snow from their hair, cursing as they hunted the deep drifts for belongings.
“I found hot embers, War Leader!” Buckeye shouted. “A moment and I will have a fire going!”
“Hurry!” Jumping Badger screamed. “Hurry!”
His whole body shook as he watched Buckeye run to crack dead branches from a tree, and run back to toss them upon the red eyes of coals. Buckeye bent over and blew into the pit. Smoke curled up, followed by a few pathetic flames.
In the fire-spawned shadows, Jumping Badger could see her. Looming tall and black, her arms whipping back and forth, silently railing at him, cursing him.
As Buckeye piled more wood on the fire, she receded into the darkness, waiting.
Jumping Badger expelled a breath and tried to control his shaking.
Fifty hands away, Jumping Badger saw the staff sticking up through the snow. He trudged to it and pulled Lamedeer’s head free.
The rotting mouth had curled into a broad smile.
“Did you think a little wind would scare me? You old fool, I—”
“You had better be scared,” Elk Ivory said as she stood up from behind a tangle of brush, her pack in her hands. She gave Jumping Badger a hard look. “We’ve just lost our packs, bedding, and supplies. If we don’t find them, we can’t go on.”
Seventeen
Wren woke again long before dawn. She threw a branch on the fire and yawned. She had been feeding the flames throughout the night, to keep Rumbler warm, and he seemed to have slept well. He lay curled in her white foxhide cape, his round face mottled with firelight. His chest rose and fell in the slow rhythms of deep sleep.
Wren rose and set last night’s turkey and cornmeal soup at the edge of the flames to warm, then hung the teapot from the tripod, and pulled out their cups. When she saw the dirty bowls, she muttered under her breath. Her mother had always told her never to leave unpleasant tasks for morning, that they became more onerous by the light of day. Wren hated the thought of braving the cold to clean them, but her bladder was about to burst anyway.
As quietly as she could, she gathered the dishes, and duckwalked to the mound of snow that blocked the entry. Using her bowl, she scooped away until a blindingly beautiful night sky met her eyes.
Wren tucked the dishes in her cape pockets, and crawled out on her hands and knees. Starlight glistened through the forest, blazing from the snow-covered branches and twigs. In the midst of a tall maple, silver owl eyes blinked at her.
The stillness of the predawn world awed her. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees. The elegant, swirling lines of the drifts looked as if they’d been sculpted by the gentle hands of Earth Spirits.
She walked away from the shelter and emptied her bladder. Cold nipped at her bare skin. She pulled up her pants and tucked her hands in her cape pockets. As she followed her own footsteps back, she used snow to scrub their bowls clean. Somewhere to the south, a fox yipped, then broke into a bark-and-howl serenade that echoed across the rolling hills.
Wren inhaled a deep breath of the cold air, and listened, hoping the call would soothe her fears.
She’d been trying not to think about what she’d done, but the awful truth kept shouting at her.
She looked eastward. Some of the old people would be rising by now, Walksalong Village coming to life. This was Wren’s favorite time of day. If she were there, she’d be snuggled under her warm hides, listening to the hushed voices that filled the longhouse, sniffing the wafting aroma of breakfast being cooked.
She murmured, “I’ll never be there again.”
It hadn’t occurred to her when she’d cut Rumbler loose that the price she’d pay for saving him would be losing everything that mattered to her.
The emptiness in her chest expanded. She would do the same thing again. She knew she would, but …
Wren tucked the clean dishes back into her cape pockets.
Perhaps, in a few winters, she would hire a runner to go to Uncle Blue Raven, asking his advice. She knew the matrons would never let her come home, but she wanted to see her uncle again. Surely they would allow that. Even if they didn’t, maybe he could sneak away to meet her.