She shook her head. “Can’t. I’ve got to get back. I have a cousin coming by to pick up some things for a weaving she’s making. I can be a little late. If I’m too late, well, she might come looking for me.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow night?”
“My husband is due home.” She traced a finger down the small of his back. “If you hadn’t spent so much time carrying other people’s elk home …”
He chuckled. “I’ll see that you get some. That’s meat for your pot, too.”
She unlocked her legs, and he rolled off her, sitting so that the buffalohide cushioned him from the rocky ground. The air on his damp flesh sent a shiver through him.
She dressed in silence, her movements half-hidden beneath the fall of her hair. “You’ve become very good at pleasing a woman.”
“I’ve come to realize that. At first I thought we were coupling on top of an anthill. Then I realized it wasn’t biting insects that were making you jump.”
She punched him playfully on the arm, giggling. “Silly. You did a little hopping yourself.”
She stood, pulling her hair back and combing it with her fingers. “I’ll leave the signal for you.”
When she was available she left a broken piece of pottery propped against her wall.
He watched her walk off into the darkness and sighed. A weary ecstasy lingered in his loins, warm and tingling.
He rubbed his face, shivered again, and pulled his hunting shirt over his head. Standing, he was tying his belt around his waist when an unfamiliar male voice from the darkness, said, “We must talk, Wrapped Wrist.”
For a moment, he froze, horrified, then, heart beating, turned and stared at the dark shadows in the surrounding brush. “Who’s there?”
A thin shape moved in the inky recesses of sweet sumac, serviceberry, and scrub oak. Wrapped Wrist could make out a man, older, taller than he. Not that it took much to be taller.
“You will come with me.”
That voice … Wrapped Wrist was sure he knew it. “Who are you?”
“Hmm. If you spent more time with elders, and less driving yourself into other men’s wives, you might know to whom you speak.” A pause. “Collect your things, then come.”
The figure turned, walking carefully on the path that wound through the brushy labyrinth.
Wrapped Wrist hesitated. If he was here to kill me, he’d have done it before I stood up.
He bent down and plucked up the half buffalohide, folding it as he followed in the man’s footsteps.
The way led west down one of the many trails that crisscrossed First Moon Mountain. When they approached any of the dwellings that dotted the slope, the shadowy figure circled wide, picking his way through the irregular footing. Once, when a dog barked from the shadows of a ramada, the man whispered something.
To Wrapped Wrist’s amazement, the cur immediately went silent and lay down.
Who is he that he can command other people’s beasts?
“Elder, could you tell me—”
“Hush!”
He puzzled at the shadowy form walking ahead of him. It moved like an old man, making those slow careful steps, almost as if he were feeling his way. The elder’s body was thin, slightly stooped. In the open patches of starlight, he appeared to be bent and frail, but while they were passing under the shadows, the old man seemed to grow Powerful and strong, as though drawing strength from the very darkness. Wrapped Wrist experienced the uncomfortable prickling sensation of fear as it danced on his skin.
They had followed the main trail down the mountain for almost a hand of time before they emerged onto the saddle that led to the Dog’s Tooth. The old man took the narrow ridgetop trail. Here and there ponderosa pine and juniper still dotted the way. Then they began the slow climb up the northwest side of the Dog’s Tooth itself.
A three-sided point of sandstone, the formation jutted defiantly from the foot of First Moon Mountain. It overlooked the confluence of the River of Stones and First Moon Creek. The summit was capped by a walled enclosure that surrounded a two-story building, two great kivas belonging to the Blue Stick and Whisper clans, and an assortment of pit houses. Wrapped Wrist had visited there before—what young man hadn’t?—but he had never been there at night, and never under such odd circumstances as this.
Whisper Clan? Could his shadowy guide be one of Willow Pole’s relatives? Someone tired of seeing his kin humiliated? Wrapped Wrist winced and glanced back at the shadows cast by the trees. He could just slip away, ghost off into the darkness where no one—
“Stay with me, young hunter. It will go hard on you if you run.”
Wrapped Wrist swallowed so loudly the elder had to hear.