She had to skin the animal “in the round” or it wouldn’t be suitable for inflating and floating in the river. That meant that she had to keep any long cuts to a minimum, since every cut would have to be sewn closed again, and each puncture she made with her bone awl would be another opening that water might seep through. The inflated hide had to be perfect, or both she and Cloud Girl would drown.
Kestrel ran her thumb along the cow’s front leg to find the notch just below the knee. Then she bent the knee and sawed with her flake until she’d sliced the ligaments. Clear, slick fluid leaked from the joint. Straightening the leg, Kestrel cracked the joint in two and twisted it apart. Gently she laid the lower leg aside with the four toes pointing westward, toward the Land of the Dead. The tapirs would have to climb onto the wings of the Thunderbeings to journey there tonight. Already their Spirits would be eager to go. Kestrel used the longest and narrowest of her flakes to trim around the inside of the knee, separating the hide from the muscle. As she went, she rolled the hide back to the tapir’s shoulder and cut off the upper leg. Then she started on the next leg.
When she’d finished all four legs, Kestrel chose a fresh flake with which to slice through the thick neck hide beneath the tapir’s skull, at the point where the spine connected to the skull, just back of the ears. It took her a full finger of time to slice through the massive tendons and ligaments to remove the head. Blood, spinal fluid and stiff black hair now stuck to her fingers. She took another long, narrow flake and cut a line from the anus down the back of each leg. She wiped her sweating brow and began the delicate process of skinning
around the rear quarters, peeling back the skin until she could pull it over the hips.
“It will go faster now, Mother,” she said reverently as she stroked the warm, twitching muscles. In the sun, the meat glistened a rich red, traced by white lines of connective tissue and fat. “I will have to be careful so I don’t puncture your thin belly hide, Mother, but the rest is easy.”
Kestrel straddled the tapir’s midsection and leaned forward. She tugged the skin back with one hand and gripped the flake in the other, skinning quickly, cleanly, although her fingers cramped from the constant battle with the thick, clumsy hide. The limp weight of the animal worked against her, too, making her pant, but finally she had pulled the last bit of hide from the neck and the tapir lay naked before her.
Cloud Girl began to cry halfheartedly. Kestrel smiled wearily at her. “I’m right here, Cloud Girl. You’re fine. We’re safe … for now.”
She picked up the sack and draped the thong around her neck, tilting the sack so that her daughter lay on her back. Kestrel untied the front of her dress and drew out her breast. Cloud Girl nursed greedily.
Standing there, holding Cloud Girl and looking at the tapirs, Kestrel’s relief was so great that she felt weak. But quick on its heels came the certain knowledge that she had to hurry, hurry.
Dropping to her knees beside the forelegs of the tapir, she picked up a fresh flake of quartzite. While Cloud Girl fed, Kestrel stripped out the leg tendons. She laid the gleaming white strings of tissue on the cow’s side and then cut out the ulna, the narrow leg bone. It took a finger of time to sharpen the point of the ulna by drawing it back and forth on the piece of sandstone, but after that, the ulna had a good sharp point. Kestrel turned the cow’s hide inside out and dragged it onto her lap. The ulna would also make an effective stiletto if she needed it, but for now she used it to punch a neat line of holes around each of the openings. With the still-wet
tendons, she sewed up the anus and the back legs, taking care to double the hide for strength and so that the stitches wouldn’t separate. That done, she turned her attention to the neck and one of the forelegs. She closed them and tied strong knots to secure her work. It would hold. She felt sure of it. Last, she cut fat from the animal’s back and rubbed thick coatings into the stitches to help seal them. Happiness buoyed her. A sound escaped her lips that was half laugh, half sob. A desperate sound.
Cloud Girl had fallen fast asleep in her rabbit-fur sack. Kestrel tucked her breast back into her dress and sat cross legged in the lee of the cliff.
Tan stone curved around and over her, like a butterfly’s cocoon, shielding her from the bite of the wind that hurled itself at the bluff. But her happiness faded. The muddy river below, although down from its highest level, was still swollen. Two juniper trees flowed in tandem down the middle of the river, whirling and bobbing. Their heavy trunks extended three times the width of Kestrel’s shoulders.