How would she and her daughter, clinging to a flimsy tapir hide, ever make it across that water? The debris would surely crush them, or drag them under.
She clutched Cloud Girl tightly and huddled back against the stone. The wind began to prick at her flesh with a wintry intensity. They couldn’t even attempt crossing today. Maybe not tomorrow either. Not until the weather turned warmer. No newborn baby could stand the bitter cold of the water. “It will warm up. Please, Above-Old-Man, let it warm up. It has to.”
Kestrel closed her eyes for a moment, trying to summon hatred or anger to give herself strength. But exhaustion weighted her. She still had to skin the calf, so she could make a robe to cover Cloud Girl and herself while they slept tonight. She would also have to slice and dry the meat, at least enough of it to last for several days. And she was so tired. Her muscles ached deep down, all the way to the bone. Despair crept through her on icy feet.
Where is Lambkill? Where is he? Why hasn’t he already tracked me to the river?
All morning she had expected to see him trotting over the bluff or down along the shoreline. Surely he would have left the village immediately after she ran away. Wouldn’t he? Or would he have waited until the storm broke before setting out on her trail? Was he so confident that he could find her?
Yes. Of course he is. Because he will.
An image of his gloating face formed on her closed eyelids; it changed as she watched, shifting to different times in their life together.
One image lingered. From cycles ago. Lambkill still had black in his hair, and wrinkles hadn’t cut such deep furrows across his forehead yet. He stood before her, trim and athletic, with muscular arms, and dressed in a beautiful, golden elk hide shirt. Yes, five cycles ago. I was thirteen summers old.
It was during the Moon-of-New-Horns at her best friend Waxwing’s marriage. Kestrel had been Lambkill’s wife for two moons. She had still felt giddy with excitement at being wanted by a man three times her age. A man whose reputation as a great Trader spanned the world. He’d been kind to her, showering her with wondrous gifts the likes of which she’d never imagined.
Kestrel had made a beautiful dress for herself, of soft doeskin bleached pure white, with red and green star bursts of porcupine quills on the chest. Her fringed leggings matched. She had braided her long hair and coiled the braids over her ears, then secured them with mammoth-ivory hairpins. Her mother had told her she looked as radiant as one of the Star People.
She’d helped Waxwing dress, then ducked out of her lodge and walked into the plaza, toward Lambkill. He’d stood near the central cook fire, watching the hindquarter of a shrub ox roasting, suspended above the flames. The rich scent had made Kestrel’s mouth water. ‘ Lambkill laughed and went on telling the tale of his last
trading journey to the People of the Masks, far to the north. He had accidentally walked between a short-faced bear and her new cub. The sow had chased Lambkill until he’d scrambled into a hole that led underground into a honeycomb of lava tubes. He’d had to stay there for three days, living off of moss and bats, before the sow had left. The young men who stood around listening had rapt expressions. Pride swelled Kestrel’s chest.
When she joined Lambkill, he smiled and slipped his arm around her waist to hold her close. His hand on her hip felt so comforting. She remembered gazing up at him as though he were Above-Old-Man himself and hoping that he would never tire of her. More than anything in the world, she wanted to please him.
As more people arrived for the marriage and joined the circle around the cook fire, cousins from distant villages came over to greet Kestrel. She smiled and laughed a great deal as she related the news and told stories about herself and Waxwing, pranks they had pulled when they’d been children. Waxwing ducked through her lodge door and began the marriage walk down the middle of the village to meet her husband-to-be, Antler Tine. Everyone followed.
The crowd stopped at the foot of the craggy red cliffs west of the village and looked up as Waxwing and Antler Tine climbed to meet Old Porcupine, who draped the white marriage hide over their shoulders. Lambkill had given Waxwing the gorgeous abalone-shell pendants that hung from the edges of the hide and glittered pink in the fading afternoon sunlight. Kestrel smiled and clapped her hands when Waxwing knelt and began Singing the Link Hands Song. Antler Tine echoed each of her verses:
Link hands, link hands, link hands with me now. Link hands, link hands, link hands with me now. I have passed you on your roads.
Above-Old-Man’s breath brought us together,
together this day. His breath of waters. His breath of seeds. His breath of strong spirit, His breath of Power, His breath of all good fortune,