“Elder?” Pitch asked. “What’s it like to ride on Thunderbird’s back?”
“Where did you go when you climbed Grandfather Vulture’s ladder?”
“For me, the ladder led to the Underwater House. I talked with my dead mother. That was just after I discovered Roe was pregnant with Stonecrop. Mother helped me to understand what made a good father. I have heard the ladder leads each person to a different place.”
“Usually, yes.”
Pitch caught the tantalizing odor of boiling seal meat as steam drifted his way. Off and on throughout the night, they’d eaten small amounts to keep up their strength.
A massive white bolt of lightning crackled right over their heads. Pitch let out a cry—drowned out by the deafening booming that shook Sandy Point Village. After images burned his eyes.
When the sound trailed away, Pitch saw Rides-the-Wind staring pensively at his lodge.
A low whimper came from inside.
Pitch leaped for the lodge. When he threw back the flap, he found Tsauz standing, hunched over, hands on his knees, shaking like a leaf in a spring gale. Bloody scratches covered his face and hands.
Pitch ducked into the lodge. “Are you all right?”
Tsauz staggered, about to topple face-first to the floor. Pitch steadied him and felt the boy’s flesh, like ice. He wrapped him in a section of elkhide and dragged him out to the fire. Tsauz collapsed on the ground like a child who’d been spinning around with his arms out.
“Tsauz? It’s Pitch. Can you answer me? Are you all right?”
Rides-the-Wind stepped to the wet pile of wood and tossed more branches onto the fire. Then he bent over the boy, peering intently into his eyes.
Tsauz sucked desperately at the air, filling his lungs, letting it out and filling them again. “We dove through the top of the forest to get here.”
“Thunderbird was in a hurry?” Rides-the-Wind asked.
He nodded. “I had to close my eyes. The light was too bright.”
Pitch waved a hand in front of the boy’s eyes. Nothing. He’d been hoping … but it didn’t matter. He stroked the boy’s hair. “You did well, Tsauz. We’re so proud of you.”
Rides-the-Wind stopped and surveyed Tsauz with expert old eyes. “Are you hungry?”
The boy wiped his runny nose on his sleeve. “Yes. But I must see Rain Bear first.”
“Pitch, these scratches need tending to. Please, fetch my Healer’s bag.”
Pitch scrambled into Rides-the-Wind’s lodge while Rides-the-Wind draped the hide closer around Tsauz’s shoulders.
When Pitch returned with the bag, Rides-the-Wind said, “Tsauz, we need you to relax for the moment. When you’re warm and we’ve tended your injuries, we’ll send for—”
“I must see Rain Bear now!” His blind eyes widened in terror. “I saw … saw all of you … and you were dead.”
Forty-six
Rain Bear sat across the fire with his teacup braced on his knee. Morning was breaking, sending a shallow light through the camp. It illuminated the low blue wreaths of smoke that hung in flat layers. Every muscle in his body cried out for more sleep, but he forced himself to sip his tea and struggled to come awake.
Little Tsauz sat across the fire, Rides-the-Wind and Pitch flanking him on either side. The boy’s dark eyes looked strangely luminous, as though some of Thunderbird’s light had suffused his young body. Rides-the-Wind had cleaned and treated his facial wounds, but a few of the deepest cuts across his forehead still oozed blood.
Rain Bear’s sleep-hazy mind wasn’t capable of rational thought this morning. Instead it kept clinging to memories of Evening Star’s body against his. He had never made love with a woman who fit so perfectly against him.
He glanced surreptitiously at her lodge, wondering when she had slipped away last night. Waking without her this morning had left him with a sense of desolation and loss.
He sniffed at the cold, sipped his tea, and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now.
“What happened?” Rain Bear gestured to the boy’s wounds.
“He flew through the treetops on Thunderbird’s back,” Rides-the-Wind answered matter-of-factly. “The branches scratched him.”
The branches scratched him? Rain Bear put more faith in good clubs and spears than he did in gods, but he didn’t exactly disbelieve.
Pitch handed Rain Bear a bowl of seal meat stew, and he nodded his thanks while he tried to sort this all out. As he stirred the stew, the mingled scents of seaweed and seal encircled his face. He took a bite. Tender and succulent, the seal melted in his mouth. Swallowing, he gestured questioningly. “I’m glad the boy had a vision, but why am I here?”