Buffalo Bird chuckled behind her. He’d been humming, rapping his atlatl against the dart shafts in his hand to make a rattling sound in time to his Song. “You must be glad to see so many men, eh, Lame Antelope? A woman alone, running from her husband, she needs to be loved.”
Kestrel flinched, but she kept on walking. Rape would be Nothing new to her. After a time, pain eased. Wounds healed. She only feared what would happen afterward.
“Well, even if you’re not glad to see them, they will be glad to see you. We’ve been out hunting mammoths for
over a moon. In all that time, none of us have had the pleasure of seeing a single track … let alone the pleasure of a woman. And you’re very pretty, despite the bruises and cuts on your face.”
Then he slipped his dart shafts into his quiver and reached up to caress her hair. Kestrel twisted away.
He grinned, twirling the atlatl on its sinew finger loops. “Will you fight us? Oh, that would be good. My brothers would like that. Perhaps you could keep us entertained all night long.”
Kestrel turned to face him. “Buffalo Bird, speak with me honestly. I don’t care what you do with me, but what will you do to my little girl?” Against the deep-blue background of evening, he looked taller, more muscular, than before. “She’s only twenty-two days old. She’s no threat to you or your brothers. And—and you could sell her. Or give her to someone who wants a baby.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “That Trader only told us he wanted his wife back. And how would we feed that baby if you were gone? The girl would cause many problems.”
“What does that mean?” “It means I don’t know.”
“Will you kill my baby?” The rabbit-fur sack in Kestrel’s arms felt suddenly lighter, as if part of Cloud Girl had already slipped away from her. Her mind raced as she tightened her hold on her daughter.
Buffalo Bird shrugged. “I will have to talk to my brothers about it. But we want to find that Trader as soon as we can. A woman alone can run pretty fast, but carrying a baby? The child is worth nothing to us.”
“Nothing?” The air went out of Kestrel’s lungs. She looked down at Cloud Girl’s beautiful little face, framed in the hood of rabbit fur, and the hard ground beneath her feet melted to quicksand.
At her horrified expression, Buffalo Bird laughed. “The best thing for you, Lame Antelope, is if you really are this Kestrel that the Trader is searching for. Because if you’re
not and we’ve already killed your baby … well, we can’t have you going back to your clan and telling them about us. You could start a war … get a lot of good people killed. It would all be your fault.”
Kestrel stood rooted to the ground. He’d just told her that he was going to murder both her and Cloud Girl—and had spoken as lightly as if he’d been discussing the killing of field mice. Why didn’t she run? Had all of her soul drained out of her in the past few weeks? How could she keep her hands so still, so tight, around Cloud Girl and not lift them to rip out his eyes?
Did Lambkill destroy your will to survive? Why are you just standing here?
Buffalo Bird shoved her shoulder hard, then smacked the atlatl across her rump. “Go on. Walk. I’m hungry. Fresh deer meat is waiting for us in camp.”
Kestrel turned. On the hill above, the shadows of his brothers played across the forest like huge shapeless monsters. She began walking. Her eyes scanned both sides of the trail, searching for and finding a thick patch of grass twenty paces ahead, where the trail veered sharply upward through a small outcrop of rocks.
Her steps grew silent, like Bobcat’s at dawn. With great care, she shifted the weight of the rabbit-fur sack to her left arm and slowly reached down to unlace the pack tied around her waist. Her fingers barely touched the contents, identifying them without making the slightest sound: flakes, twine, Cloud Girl’s mouse hide pacifier, the tapir ulna… Sickness churned in her belly as her fingers tightened around the ulna. You can do it. You have to!
“Besides …” Buffalo Bird was very close behind her now, closing the gap between them as they neared the rock outcrop “… that Trader’s brother, Tannin, told me that Kestrel had committed incest. If you’re her, your baby is dead anyway. At least we’ll do it fast, so the girl doesn’t suffer. I don’t know about that Lambkill. He was so crazy, he might torture—”
Kestrel glanced sideways at the thick patch of grass and lifted her foot to the first stone step on the trail. It wobbled dangerously beneath her moccasin. As though falling, Kestrel groaned “Oh, no!” and dropped Cloud Girl into the grass.