“No, you couldn’t. I’ve seen that look many times on the faces of warriors … watched them stare in shock at their friends on the battlefield. Even though there was nothing they could have done, they always believed if they’d just said something, called out, they could have saved them.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Tell me something: After fighting tens of battles, do you ever stop being afraid?”
“Only if you want to die.” He smiled grimly. “Somehow, Kakala’s warriors have proved incredibly inept.”
She smiled for the first time.
Windwolf looked up at the sky. “May I ask you a question?”
He saw the sudden trepidation, but she said, “Yes.”
“Have you truly lost your faith in Wolf Dreamer?”
She nodded. “There—there was a woman in the enclosure. She told me it was a test—that Wolf Dreamer and Old Man Above had to know we had faith in them. That it was like a father punishing his child: Every instant of pain had a reason. That our pain …” She choked on the word, and had to swallow hard before she could continue. “Our pain hurt Wolf Dreamer as much as it did us.”
He remained silent, listening.
When her hands started to shake, she knotted them and stuffed them under her armpits.
Windwolf asked, “What did you say?”
“That Wolf Dreamer was dead.”
He shifted against the ledge, and his cape made a soft scraping sound. “Do you believe that deep down in your soul?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If Wolf Dreamer has to murder my family to test my faith, he’s a monster. I prefer to believe he never existed.”
His gaze rested on her face for a moment, then moved away, back to the star-spotted sky.
What do I believe? He puzzled for the answer, and it eluded him.
After a long silence, he murmured, “You said there were things you needed to tell me about the Prophet? What things?”
She clumsily fumbled with the laces on her cape, pulling them tighter. “I met him once.”
Windwolf jerked around to look at her. “Where?”
“Outside of a Nine Pipes village. Ashes had just been born. She was sick. I had seen six and ten summers. I’d gone out at dusk to carry a bowl of mussel shells to the trash midden and found him there. He looked like a frightened animal. He was huddling over the midden using his teeth to scrape tiny bits of meat from old shells. When he saw me, he let out a whimper like a terrified dog—one that’s been kicked too often. He tried to scuttle away. I called to him, but he disappeared into the forest.” She rubbed her arms again. As night deepened, the air turned bitterly cold. “I went back into our lodge and filled a bowl with the last of the warm snowshoe hare we’d had for supper. We’d been very careful, eating just enough to keep us alive. I was supposed to save the rest for breakfast.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. When I went outside again, he was back at the midden, working on the mussel shells again. I crept up very carefully and handed him the bowl.”
“How did he react?”
She tilted her head, remembering the expression on his face. “He looked as though I’d just given him enough buffalo hides to ransom a village. As though to thank me, he handed me a raven feather.”
Windwolf leaned against the ledge beside her. “When did you see him again?”
“I never did. He was around—people would see his tracks. I heard hunters say that they’d seen him at this village, or that, but he never returned to Nine Pipes territory.”
Windwolf grunted thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything.
Somewhere out in the darkness a wolf yipped. Then a whole pack began serenading the night. Their lilting howls echoed across the hills.
“Do you think that’s why he’s so interested in you? You helped him once?” Windwolf asked.
“Maybe. I think his soul is loose. He needs to be Healed by a Soul Flyer, someone powerful enough to find his lost soul and fix it to his body again.”
Windwolf ran his hand over the carved wood of his atlatl. It was such a soft, loving gesture, it reminded her of the way a man would touch a woman’s skin. “I hope you won’t allow your pity for him to cloud your thoughts when the time comes to kill him.”
Memories flashed across her soul: Ti-Bish hungrily gobbling down the warm meat with tears in his eyes … Hookmaker shouting at her to run … the screaming women in the enclosure … .
“No.” She shook her head. “It won’t.”
An owl flapped over the creek on silent wings. They watched it soar just above the water before it vanished into the darkness.
A queer uneasiness taunted her. She said, “And what about you? Do you believe in the Blessed Wolf Dreamer?”