Which way? He yawned, staring over the twisted vastness. A wonderland of—
The call wavered in the crystal clarity of the still air. Distant, it quavered and died, winding through the shattered world of snow-capped ice.
"Wolf . . . ?"
The eerie yips drifted across the waste again, faint, so far away.
There. That way. Noting the landmarks in his mind, he set out. The polished shaft of his dart served as a staff, seeking, ever seeking in the snow. He barely caught himself before he stepped over nothingness, the crevasse bridged by a thin drift of snow.
Backtrack, check the reference points. Pick a potential route around the crevasse, go. Step-by-step, grip by perilous grip.
Everything is lost to me now. I have nothing. Heron, you let love kill you. Dancing Fox? I need you. But can I let myself love you ?
The ice shifted. He froze, barely breathing. A grinding came from beneath. For long moments he stood painfully still, arms outspread, fingers knotting in the side of the slab he traversed. The minute rumblings diminished.
"Ghosts . . ." He sighed. Relief warm in his veins, he extended a careful hand. Took another step, slowly working his way off the tilted block and onto another precarious slab of ice jutting up at an impossible angle.
Step-by-step, he continued, seeing where snow had crumbled and fallen into blue-black cracks in the ice. He slipped, rolled, caught himself at the last moment, and scrambled across a declivity. Below, his darts clattered on hard ice from where he'd dropped them in the mad bid for life.
"Close, ghosts. You hear? Close that time. Come on! Come get me!"
Panting fear, heart pounding in his chest, he reeled in the gut line he'd tied to the shafts of his darts. One by one, he checked the stone points, assuring himself they hadn't been damaged. Once more, he began the journey, going by feel, seeking that long low cry he'd heard earlier.
Father Sun worked his way across the southern borders of the sky, casting long black shadows across the ice wall. By night, Wind Woman had renewed her fury.
Crouched in a hollow excavated in the lee of a drift, he lulled himself to sleep with, ' 'I heard it. I heard Wolf. He called. I know it."
As he drifted off to sleep, the Dream came again.
He trotted with Wolf along the Big River. Again he passed through the darkness and climbed the glacial walls to stare out over the green valley.
Dancing Fox waited there. Like a seal, she rose from a hot pool, water coursing down her brown body in silver streams. Her wet black hair—shining in the brilliant light—clung to her glistening body. She spread her arms as she walked toward him, drops like dew on her skin. He reached for her, • feeling his desire build. She smiled, sunlight warm on the curve of her breasts, nipples erect in the cool air. Under the water, her legs began to part, ready to enfold his manhood.
As his fingertips traced hers, Heron's voice grated from someplace above. Dancing Fox stiffened, fear glazing her gentle eyes. As he watched, she changed, face wrinkling, shrinking, becoming Heron in death—terror etched forever in her eyes.
He jerked awake, shuddering wildly. "No, no, I . . ."
In the distance, an animal's soft haunting cries called to him. He pushed up, cold stabbing at his flesh, and gripped his darts.
"I'm coming, Wolf."
When morning came, his stomach cramped with hunger. A ground blizzard obscured everything within a hand's length of his face. Travel? When he couldn't see his very feet below him?
He dug another snow shelter and wearily closed his eyes and leaned back, an image of the green valley burning in his
mind. The Wolf Dream lay just beyond his nightmares, beckoning, eternally over the horizon, veiled by blowing white.
Bleary-eyed, he set out after the wind dropped. Foot by foot, hand by hand, he continued, the gale to his back.
"I don't want to die out here." He shook his head dizzily, harshly reprimanding, "You're a coward! A crazy coward. You led the People to their deaths!" Then in a pathetic tone: "Nothing's working anymore. Can't live like a man . . . love. Heron's gone."
He laughed softly, derisively, weaving on his feet. "Dreamer? Me?" He looked up to the graying in the west. "Did you betray me, Wolf? Huh? Father Sun, did you let him betray me and the People!"
He caught himself teetering on the verge of a crevasse and stumbled backward, gasping, as he stared owlishly down into the darkness.
"I could just step off. Finish it. Become one with the ice. So easy. No more hunger. No more hurt."
The sound barely registered at first. A crunching of snow.
Blinking, he looked around, seeing nothing in the ever-present whiteness.
Again the sound pierced his concentration. This time, he crouched, staring. A shadow moved and hope welled like a tidal wave.