Kestrel still stood transfixed. Helper loped back and clamped his jaws around her hand, tugging at her cruelly, his canines digging into her flesh. She forced herself to back away. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. Cloud Girl burst into pathetic, shrill cries. Kestrel thought she could see her daughter’s tiny hands reaching out to her.
Sobs choked her as she followed Helper into the black depths of the forest.
Sumac stood anxiously on the crest of the hill, her arms folded, peering westward. In the distance, wind pulled the clouds into thin strands of pale gray. She had been irritable all night, feeling strangely as though silent voices called to her from the trees and the earth, trying to warn her. When she’d first walked out, she’d half expected to see the woman named Kestrel coming up the trail. But she saw only Harrier and the two Bear-Looks-Back men sitting around their fire at the base of the hill. They’d erected a brush lodge twenty hands down the trail from their fire. It looked like a small shaggy bear.
Then she heard the baby’s wails rising out of the depths of the trees, and her eyes jerked wide open. The older man-Lambkill—lurched to his feet when he heard the child’s cries. The look on his withered face sent a chill up Sumac’s spine.
“Oxbalm?” she shouted. She didn’t turn, knowing that he sat beside the fire, sipping phlox-blossom tea.
Without waiting for his answer, she ran down the starlit slope, her old knees crackling. In her rush, she dislodged rocks and dirt. Three large stones bounced and tumbled ahead of her, followed by a flood of dark earth.
“What is it? Sumac?” Oxbalm responded.
“There’s a baby in the forest!”
She heard a dozen people start down the hill behind her. Speculative murmurs broke out. By the time she reached the bottom of the hill, Lambkill had disappeared into the trees. Sumac rushed headlong after him, her old heart pounding so hard that she could feel it in her throat. The baby’s cries had intensified, become breathless now, as though the infant were scared half to death.
“Blessed Mother Ocean,” she whispered, “if he hurts that baby …”
She found Lambkill holding up a fur sack with a child in it. He held the sack at arm’s length, as though frightened of the baby.
Without a word, Sumac rushed forward and jerked it from his hands, then cradled the child to her breast. The baby tipped a tear-streaked face up and frantically twined her fists in the fringes on Sumac’s dress. Sumac didn’t know why she assumed the child to be a girl, but she did. A thick wealth of black hair covered her tiny head. Softly, Sumac stroked her cheek and said, “Shh, it’s all right, baby. I’m here.”
A haunted expression twisted Lambkill’s face. He glanced from Sumac to the child and back. “Whose baby is that?”
“Mine now.” Sumac turned away, trying to catch her breath, and headed for the trail. She could see Oxbalm and several other villagers standing there next to Harrier. Tannin, LambkilFs younger brother, stood a short distance away, beyond the glow of the fire, his face dark and inscrutable.
“What do you mean it’s yours? Who gave birth to it?” Lambkill demanded as he thrashed through the brush behind her.
Sumac hobbled out across the grass and thrust the baby
into Oxbalm’s arms. He looked at his wife in puzzlement, but held the baby close. Then he peered over Sumac’s shoulder at Lambkill. When the child fussed, Oxbalm rocked her gently—as he had rocked tens of tens of babies over the long cycles.
Sumac whispered, “I’ll explain later. The baby is ours now.”
Lambkill strode into the amber glow and clenched his fists at his sides. His face had turned an ugly shade of red, as if he suspected he were being played for a fool. “Who does that baby belong to?”
Oxbalm glanced at Sumac’s face, and his faded eyes lit with understanding. He shifted the child into his right arm and reached out to take Sumac’s hand. His warm touch comforted her. He replied, “This child belongs to the Otter Clan.”
“Are you telling me that someone from your village left her baby in the forest… alone! At night?”
Calmly, Oxbalm replied, “What I’m telling you is that this is none of your concern, Trader Lambkill.”
Voices rose like a flock of frightened birds and fluttered through the fire lit darkness. Men and women whispered behind their hands and stared at the baby.
Oxbalm ignored them. He hobbled up the trail toward the hilltop, dragging Sumac with him. Very quietly, Sumac said, “I think it’s her baby. All night long, I’ve been feeling odd. I think she was here, saw her husband and decided to leave her child and run away.”