People of the Sea(34)

“Iceplant’s face flitted through her mind, and Kestrel had to shove the image away to keep her feet moving. Thoughts of him left her trembling. Despite her exhaustion, nightmares had tormented her sleep. She dreamed that she’d met Iceplant at the Pinyon Bark Trails crossing—just as they’d planned-and that he’d played his flute for her while she’d given birth to their children. The sweet, lilting notes had comforted her pain. Afterward, he had smiled and curled his body around hers, keeping her warm through the darkness and the cold. When the golden rays of sunrise had struck their brush shelter the next morning, they’d taken the babies and headed for the sea, laughing, talking about their future…

The dream had left her weeping with despair. She couldn’t afford to remember such hopes. Someday, she promised herself, she would find a safe hole, cover it with brush and spend time sorting through the wild expectations and the terrors of recent days. She desperately needed to lick her wounds, to cry until her tears dried up. More than that, she needed time to shout at herself in rage. Rage for all the mistakes she’d made. Rage for causing Iceplant’s death… and the death of Iceplant’s son.

Yesterday she’d searched for the baby boy but had found no remains. The hungry animals who roamed the shore must have Not now. Don’t think about it now.

When Kestrel crested the bluff, darting from scrubby tree to scrubby tree, she could see the tapirs trotting along the next rise. She hastily crouched behind-a juniper, peering through the scaly needled branches, and waited until the pair had gone down the other side. The pungent sweetness of the tree



lingered in her nostrils, fresh and vigorous. If she spooked the tapirs now, they might break to the right, or worse, to the left, and double back to escape.

“Let’s give them a little more time, Cloud Girl,” she whispered. “We want them to feel safe when they come to the brush wing walls.”

Kestrel had spent an entire day building her trap. She’d twisted sage out of the ground and gathered dead juniper limbs so she could pile them into a long V that progressively narrowed as it neared the face of the cliff—a place where the hard sandstone had been undercut by the wind and weather. The drop was short, barely twenty hands, but it should do the job. She would have to frighten the animals enough to get them running and then force them into a desperate leap over the edge. If she could do that, she would have what she needed for crossing the swollen river.

“Enough,” she whispered to Cloud Girl. “Let’s go.”

She sprinted down the game trail behind the tapirs. Her insides still ached, and every time her foot landed, a sharp pain lanced her abdomen. But she had to keep running; she had to kill at least one of the tapirs. Too much time had passed while she had been trapped by the river’s swirling floodwaters. Whenever the wind moaned, she swore that she heard Lambkill’s voice saying, “You can never run away from me. Never …”

Despite the pain, she clutched her daughter against her chest and ran harder, down the dip, up the rise. Gravel bit into her moccasins, and she almost slipped on the wet clay beneath. Before she reached the summit, she slowed and crept up the slope to peer over the crest. The tapirs had unwittingly trotted down the trail between the wing walls. But if she didn’t do something fast, they would come to the Place where the trail vanished, veering southward. There, the brush walls funneled them over unmarked stone toward the cliff. Unlike the mountain sheep, who would panic at the obstruction, the tapirs would lower their heads and bull their way through the walls to stay on the trail.



Kestrel picked up her pace and charged over the top of the bluff. When she reached the wing walls, she swerved and sprinted down the trail behind the tapirs. The cow heard her coming and bellowed a warning as it wheeled to face her. The calf danced sideways to see the problem. When it spied Kestrel, it let out a shrill cry and galloped headlong down the brush walls, not stopping until it reached the cliff. Kestrel lifted her arms and hollered as she dashed headlong down the slope. The cow lowered her head and stood pawing the stone with gleaming eyes.

“Run! Run, Mother!” Kestrel shouted. “Hurry! Run!”

The cow stood her ground and began to snort dangerously. A single butt from that thick skull would send Kestrel sprawling to the ground, where she would be trampled.

She kept running.

The cow laid her ears back and took a few threatening steps. Kestrel pulled a juniper branch from the wing walls and slapped the brush as she continued forward, roaring “Hiyay! Hiyay!”

Cloud Girl broke into sobs.

The cow sidestepped uncertainly, her coarse hair standing on end; then she took a step backward, and finally she whirled to trot after her calf.