She made another trip to the pack rat nest, this time finding a knot of long, dry grass—just the sort she would need for under, assuming that she could keep her head long enough to produce an ember.
Cloud Girl had started crying again, loudly and breathlessly.
Kestrel chose a natural depression in the floor near the back wall. Shifting so that her shoulders blocked the wind that trickled into the shelter, she shielded the kindling while she laid out her newly found fire sticks. She put her feet on either end of the cracked pine slab, then placed the point of the choke cherry stick in the middle. She used her chest-wincing at the pain it gave her sternum—to press a dimple into the pine. Not much of a dimple, but enough to steady the beaver-chewed choke cherry in place. She begin spinning the choke cherry stick like a drill between her aching palms. Spinning it as fast as she could.
The motion was awkward. Several times she fumbled. But soon she had bored a tiny hole, and frayed wood shavings had built up like fine dust around it. She continued spinning. The stick dug deeper, and friction began to heat the pine.
She’d reached the threshold of endurance when a thin trace of blue smoke finally rose. Her fingers had gained some flexibility. She could touch her thumb to her index finger now, but the pain of it went clear to her bones.
You don’t have time to hurt, Kestrel. You’ve got to have fire. She spun the stick faster. When the shavings in the hole began to glow, she quickly dumped them into the frayed grasses she’d retrieved from the pack rat’s nest and blew gently. She had to repeat the process four times before the under caught. The grass curled blackly, and flickers of flame crackled to life. Kestrel fed them twigs and bit her lip anxiously as the fire hovered at the edge of death. When one of the larger twigs caught, she let out a muted cry of joy. She gathered more wood from the nest and gradually added larger and larger pieces until she had a good blaze going.
She longed to slump right there in front of the fire and sleep. “Not yet.”
She completely demolished the pack rat nest and used the sticks, dried juniper branches and small stones to make a wall
in front of the fire. It stretched only six hands long and four hands high, but it shielded the blaze and created a tiny refuge for herself and Cloud Girl.
She brought her daughter and her pack into the niche and sank back against the stone wall. The warmth of the flames made her shivering worse, but this pain felt wonderful. Cloud Girl wailed and squealed, waving her tiny fists urgently.
“Oh, baby, just let me sit for a little while.”
But Cloud Girl’s insistent voice forced Kestrel to untie the front of her drenched dress and lift her daughter to her breast. The baby must have been getting some milk, because she quieted immediately, or perhaps it was just the comfort of the nipple that soothed her.
Kestrel reached into her pack and pulled out a long piece of dried tapir. The meat had gotten wet, but she ate and ate until her stomach cramped. Food would help her body to heat itself.
As night thickened beyond the shelter, the tawny light of the fire seemed a huge blaze. None of the Star People could compete with it. They had vanished. The wall of sticks and branches would diffuse the light, but the glow would be evident from across the river. And Kestrel couldn’t afford to care about it. She had to get warm. As she had kicked her feet in the bitter water, she’d dreamed of building a fire so huge that it roasted her bones. If she could just sleep warm for one night—just one night—maybe she would be all right.
She yawned and shivered. When the fire burned down, she pulled sticks from the brush wall and added them to the blaze. Cloud Girl fell asleep with Kestrel’s nipple in her mouth.
Kestrel rearranged herself so she could lower the infant to her lap, with the soaked foot of the rabbit-fur sack closest to the flames. It would be dry by morning. Oh, what she would have given for a dry dress. For anything dry to wrap around her shoulders. A musty old buffalo hide would have been magnificent.
She stared at the flickers of flame, and her eyes closed. Racking shivers had ceased to possess her and now came at
only sporadic intervals. Her thoughts rambled, their shapes and colors softening like golden autumn trees in the hazy veil of night. Then memories crept up on her, stealing through her soul as subtly as the foul scent of bear on a still, spring morning….
“Lamhkill!” Kestrel spun around as he burst through the lodge door like a warrior on a raid. He had his war club clutched in a tight fist. His chest rose and fell as though he were suffocating. “What… what’s wrong?” Terrified, Kestrel backed up against the rear wall.
“Wrong?” he replied in a frighteningly soft voice. He took a step forward, shaking with rage. Sweat poured from his. heavy jowls. “Where were you at noon today?”