She nodded sympathetically. “And your favorite food?”
“Nothing you’d like. It’s a plant so spicy almost no one but me can eat it. It’s called beeweed and comes from the far west.”
“How do you get it?”
“From the river Traders. One summer they brought a sack of beeweed to our camp in the Hunting Horse territory. That’s the only time I’ve had beeweed, but I remember the flavor.”
She smiled, a true gesture, not one of those carefully contrived to ease tension. It made him feel better. She drew a black curving line on the hide. “The Waterthrush People make an acorn bread that they serve with bumblebee honey. That’s my favorite.”
He leaned forward. “I’ll have to try it the next time I’m there.”
She smiled, white teeth flashing behind her lips. “Do. You’ll like it.”
They fell silent, gazing across the fire at each other.
Who is this woman? As he looked into her eyes, it was as if to touch her soul. He could sense her fear and the worry that chewed away at her. For that moment, she wasn’t deadly, didn’t mask her insecurity in the face of the future. In the firelight, he watched her pupils expand, her lips part. Then, self-consciously, she took a breath and went back to drawing.
A long silence stretched.
“Windwolf …” She pressed her lips tightly together. “I’m sorry that all this …” She bit it off, averting her eyes, irritated with herself.
“You did what you had to, Deputy.” He smiled wearily. “We all do.”
He watched the fire dance over her smooth cheeks, wondering why no man had devoted himself to her.
As if in defeat, she murmured, “As Kakala says, we have to be Nightland warriors.”
“You sound like you’d rather not.”
“Like you, I’m tired of it.” She met his eyes, that curious vulnerability calling to him. “Do you believe in what you’re doing?”
He made a helpless gesture. “If I don’t save my people, who will?”
“Can’t they save themselves?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Think about what we were: loosely knit bands of hunters and gatherers, moving our villages from place to place. All anyone wanted was enough to eat, to watch our children grow, to appease the Spirits of the animals we hunted and the plants we ate. Most of our time was spent squabbling with each other over trivialities.” He paused, staring into her eyes with a desperation of his own. “Now it all seems so silly.”
She broke the connection, frowning as she bent down to trace another line, scowled, and spit on her palm to rub it out. “Tell me … do you ever long to just run away? Maybe travel south to the nut forests, or out to the grassy plains?”
“More than you could know,” he said sadly. “Were it not for my responsibility to save my people, I would be gone.” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling curiously uneasy. “There’s nothing left here now. Only painful memories of my wife and child, dead friends, and a happy life that is lost.”
She nodded, lips pursed. He decided he liked the pouting frown in her forehead.
“Do you and Kakala wish to run away, too?”
“I do. Kakala …” She looked up, slightly startled. “No, Kakala and I aren’t like that. It’s hard to explain. We’re …” The frown was back, a mirror for her own confusion. “Closest friends.” She gave a dismissive gesture. “There’s no man in my life.”
“Are they all fools?”
She laughed, genuinely amused. “No, and I guess that’s the problem. You’d have to be a fool to want a woman like me. Few men can stand a woman who runs faster, throws harder, or hunts better.”
“Some do.” He glanced down at his hands again. “Once, I had a woman like that.”
“I know.” She shook her head, voice dropping. “Bramble was my friend.”
“Then you know what they did to her?”
She nodded. “Karigi.” She swallowed hard. “When Kakala saw …”
“Go on.” He felt his chest tightening.
“If you hadn’t attacked, Kakala would have killed Karigi. I’ve never seen him in such a rage. He was in the process of beating him to death. It wasn’t just that Karigi had disobeyed orders.”
“Why?”
She looked up at him, eyes liquid. “Because Kakala liked and respected Bramble. It takes a great deal to earn Kakala’s respect. But Bramble did. Seeing … It wounded him.” She rolled the charcoal in her fingers, staring into his eyes, the corners of her lips twitching.