“Is she a Healer?”
“No, but she knows how to take care of people. She’s very good at it. She raised me and my brother and sister after our parents died.”
Kestrel blinked somberly. “She sounds like a good woman. A woman who loves children…. Come on, then. Let’s get moving.” Horseweed picked up his weapons, put his dart in his
quiver and tied his atlatl to his belt thong. Then he handed the woman her own weapons. She took them, saying, “Thank you. After the things you must have heard about me from Lambkill, I’m surprised that you would give me back my weapons.”
Horseweed lifted the narrow end of the travois and ducked under it so that the top rung pressed against his waist and the poles rested over his hips. The ends of the poles provided handholds. “It is because I’ve met your husband that I gave them back, Kestrel. He’s… well, you may need them.”
He walked forward slowly, testing the travois’ strength. The litter seemed stable. He pulled it out onto the trail, feeling the heavy drag.
He squinted at the moonlit path—all of it uphill. He’d make it to the village, all right. Somehow, some way, he’d summon the strength and endurance, but it wouldn’t be fun.
Kestrel walked beside Sunchaser, her weapons in one hand and the other hand knotted in what remained of his left sleeve, making certain that his limp body didn’t slide off the travois when they hit irregularities in the trail. Helper trotted in front, scouting the path with his nose in the air.
When Horseweed reached the top of the first rise, he stopped to take a breath while he looked out over the vista.
“Oh!” Kestrel cried, stepping to the side and returning with her pack, which had fallen from beneath Sunchaser’s head.
Horseweed glanced around. “This must be where he was attacked. Here, in the middle of the rise. But that doesn’t make sense. Predators generally hunt from the shadows, from ambush. Not from the open.”
As Kestrel relied her pack to the side of the travois, Helper trotted down the trail ahead of them, his bushy tail up. Horse weed threw himself back into his labor, the eerie wrongness clinging to his soul like morning dew to a spiderweb.
The hills bore a shining powder of moonlight that resembled snow during the Moon-When-WindSings, breathtakingly beautiful. Every blade of grass in the meadows shimmered.
Slender feathers of clouds floated across the bleached belly of Brother Sky. Horseweed breathed deeply of the damp redolence of the night and steadily pulled the travois.
Somewhere out there, a wounded animal hid. It would be angry and in pain, eager to even the score. He glanced down at his atlatl on his belt, making certain it would be close at hand if needed. It would be hard to draw a dart from his quiver, however, while hauling the litter.
He leaned into the rung over his waist and tugged the travois down the slope and across a field of wildflowers. Too many things were happening—as if all the world were coming undone. And, yes, he was right in the middle of it.
“Did you commit incest?” Horseweed asked bluntly.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “According to my people, I did. But my lover’s mother came from your clan, the Otter Clan. He said you traced your kinship through the women, so he didn’t consider me to be his cousin.”
Horseweed frowned. “How does your clan trace its kinship?” “Through the men.”
He shook his head. “I’ve heard of such a thing, but I can’t even imagine how it would work. When you marry, do you go to live in your husband’s lodge, in his mother’s village?”
“In his father’s village. But often Traders’ wives continue to live in their own villages—it’s a kindness. Life in their husbands’ villages would be very difficult. Traders are gone for half the cycle or more, and the woman would be lost in a group of strangers. But usually women go to their husbands’ villages. Among my people, everything belongs to men. The lodge, the children. Even a woman’s body.”
Horseweed cocked his head when he heard the scurrying of field mice across the trail ahead. He saw their tiny forms darting over the bare dirt. He scanned the next rise, searching for any sign of danger. “Your lover was related to your father, then?” He grunted as he tugged the travois around a deep hole in the trail.
“Yes. Iceplant was my father’s brother’s son.”
“He wouldn’t have been your cousin as far as my clan is concerned, I’ve never heard his name before, though. What was his mother’s name?”
“Wind Shadow.”
Horseweed chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. For her sake, he prayed to Above-Old-Man that someone had heard that name before. “Don’t worry. She must have left a long time ago. Maybe some of the clan elders will remember her.”