“He’ll kill me, Tannin. You know he will! You’ve seen—”
Tannin slapped her hard across the jaw. She stumbled backward. He loomed over her, his nostrils flaring with anger. “You deserve to die for what you’ve done. You and your filthy cousin.” He grabbed her by the fringed sleeve of her dress and flung her into a shambling trot across the wet sandstone. Juniper trees and brush clung to the patches of soil that had filled the hollows in the stone. She stumbled through them. “I said, run!”
Kestrel staggered forward as fast as she could, trying not to trip in the scattered sage that snagged the hem of her dress.
She started down the other side of the ridge toward the village, where seventeen grass lodges were arranged in an irregular semicircle, covering the top of the hill and flowing down over the side; each lodge faced east to receive the early morning blessings of Father Sun. Her own lodge, on the eastern side of the village, sat a little apart, surrounded by a thick grove of junipers that shook berry-heavy limbs in the cold wind.
Her people moved three times a cycle, packing their lodges and belongings and traveling to the shores of the Great Northern Lake in the autumn for the waterfowl migrations, and in the summer making a ten days’ walk to the east, to be in the midst of the marshes when the grasses seeded out. This village, Juniper Village, served as both a winter and a spring camp, and her clan spent most of its time here.
Cycles ago, before her marriage, she had chosen the location of this lodge for its privacy. Later, she had regretted the
decision. Her husband was a great Trader. He spent half of the cycle of seasons away from home, poling his raft around the huge lakes, traveling all the way to the rainy seacoast far to the north. She didn’t know how she’d survived for so long alone, watching the trails, waiting, huddling in her robes at night with only the wind to talk to. Loneliness had nearly driven her mad.
Until Iceplant came…
At least Iceplant had escaped. They had split their trails to confuse their trackers, but Kestrel knew that Iceplant was running westward. He was a fast runner, the fastest in the village. He might even now be sitting on the shores of the distant ocean with his mother’s people, the Otter Clan.
Thankyou, Above-Old-Man. I know I’m unworthy to receive such a gift, but thank you for keeping him safe.
Kestrel placed a hand on their baby and thought she could feel the child’s heartbeat, pounding out of rhythm with her own as Iceplant’s had done when they’d lain together beneath a mound of furs last autumn. She had known the terrible chance she was taking, but she had taken it willingly, gratefully. Iceplant’s warmth had driven the cold from her soul.
All winter she had managed to hide her condition under thick layers of clothing. Not even Lambkill had suspected. She’d spent her time in the menstrual hut with the other women, pretending. But when Spring Girl began to breathe warmth over the frost-laden land, people had glanced suspiciously at Kestrel’s heavy clothing. Just after Lambkill had headed north to trade with the Lake People, the rumors had broken loose.
“Ah!” Kestrel cried at the edge of the village when she slipped on a wet rock and twisted her ankle. Her steps faltered. Tannin shouted, “Do you want to die here in the mud?”
“I—I’m going, Tannin.”
Kestrel limped past the first lodge. Made of a frame of willow poles covered with grass thatch, it resembled a shaggy bear hunched over a kill. The scents of fires smoldering, meat cooking and damp furs drifted to her.
People had gathered before a bonfire in the plaza, where flames were leaping twelve hands high. It looked like the entire village—maybe thirty adults and two dozen children-were there. Sparks, winking and sizzling as they rose into the dreary sky, whirled over their heads. When Tannin shrieked a war cry, people turned; men shook war clubs, roaring, while old women wept and tore at their hair. Young women covered their children’s eyes to protect them from the wicked sight of Kestrel.
Tribal elders hunched in several lodge doorways, sheltering from the rain, their faces twisted. Kestrel tried not to look at the beautiful geometric designs decorating their shirts. She had dyed the porcupine quills and sewn them onto the garments herself. Each color came from a Spirit Plant that cured different illnesses of the body or soul. Prickly pear cactus fruit produced the rich purple color, juniper berries the tan, rabbit brush the pale gold, sumac bark the beautiful brown.
She stumbled past Old Buffalo Woman, her eyes lingering on the orange-pink color that she’d created from mixing lichen and holly berries. When brewed as a strong tea, the same mixture cured indigestion and eased the tremors of the limb-shaking disease. Even as a child, the need to dye and paint had tormented her, as though Above-Old-Man had buried love for the bright pigments deep in her bones. She could not live without her art. And her creations could not live without her, for Kestrel added drops of her own blood to each color. It awakened the sleeping Spirits in the dead plants and gave the designs the ability to come to life. Not every design did. But many of these had. And now, as she went forward, she could hear their voices, soft and pitiful, wondering at her fate, telling her to flee before it was too late. “Run… run . , .!”