People of the Wolf(149)
"I could almost wish this one had gotten away," Broken Branch muttered as she looked up from the bottom of the hole.
"He almost did," Green Water reminded her, images of the brown deer's incredible agility lingering. When it fell through the trap she'd carefully dug, the big animal had whirled despite a broken front leg and yelped as she approached. In a desperate leap, it had cleared the pit, landed on the broken leg and tumbled back in. By the time Green Water closed, the animal had leapt again, locking its good front leg along with one rear. While it teetered at the edge of the pit, clawing with the other back leg, she'd driven a dart deeply into its side, sending it crashing once more into the hole. This time the large span of shiny antlers had caught, breaking the animal's neck.
"So much bigger than caribou!" Broken Branch grinned up from the bottom. "Fat meat and good game! Ha-heeee! Wolf Dream did us good!"
Green Water's baby cooed and gurgled in agreement where it swayed in the breeze, dangling in a hide bag from a spruce limb.
Green Water smiled at the child, bending over to pluck up some of the snow and scrub the caked blood from her fingers.
"People'll be coming through the ice soon." Broken Branch's lips spread in a wide grin to expose her toothless gums, the wrinkles of her face rearranging into different patterns.
Green Water nodded. "Water's down in the Big River. Curlew Song was down there yesterday."
Broken Branch's ancient fingers gripped a heavy bifacial chopper. Despite the cramped space, she skillfully smashed the ribs loose from the spine and sternum, exposed now that they'd removed the front and rear quarters. With a flake from her pouch, she sliced through the diaphragm and grunted, lifting the heavy ribs up to Green Water.
"Lot of meat here. Not a mammoth, by any means . . . but enough to last a family a full turning of the moon." Green Water carried the flopping ribs to the pile, thankful the flies had frozen out.
"I wonder who Wolf Dreamer will bring. Buffalo Back's clan? All of them?" She shook her head. "Hard to think, about what's happening on the other side of the ice when we've done so well here." She severed the heart sac, lifting the thick organ out, flicking bone slivers off the meat as she sucked the blood from the wide aorta, pumping the muscle to squirt the warm fluid into her mouth.
Smacking her lips, she handed it to Green Water, bending to cut out the lungs and liver.
"My One Who Cries will be coming home." Green Water sighed longingly, reaching down for the thick liver, taking time to bite a chunk from the rich organ, chewing and taking yet another bite, enjoying the taste of the new creature.
Broken Branch turned the stomach inside out, inspecting the rough surface. "It'll do for a boiling bag."
"When do you think they'll start through the hole?"
Broken Branch wiped a blood-encrusted hand across her wrinkled forehead, squinting up at the slant of sunlight. "Maybe a week. We'd better have lots of food stored—just in case all the clans come at once."
"You think they will?" Green Water asked, worried. They'd laid in a lot of food, but not that much.
Broken Branch turned her withered face up. Sunlight gilded
her wrinkles. "Depends on how bad the pressure from the Others is. And how many believe the Wolf Dream."
The band of the People gathered on the rocky hillside above Heron's hot pool, their bodies silhouetted against the wavering flames of the Monster Children's War. A few stars peeked out above the southern horizon, sparkling in the frigid night air.
' 'I know many of you fear the ice." Wolf Dreamer turned, hands raised. "Don't worry. I've Dreamed the ghosts away. Tomorrow you won't even hear a groan from them."
Who's he trying to kid! One Who Cries wondered to himself. He stared curiously at Wolf Dreamer, uncomfortable with the detached gleam in the young man's eyes. He'd lost weight, and more sooty smudges than usual lined his face. He'd gone to Dreaming constantly, only appearing for brief moments when he sensed it necessary to reassure his people. And why'd Singing Wolf and Dancing Fox have to run off and leave me here to keep things going? Why is it always me? I hate messing around with spirit stuff!
"There'll be no ghosts?" Four Teeth wondered aloud.
"The Big Ice is nothing more than illusion." Wolf Dreamer smiled serenely.
Four Teeth cocked his head, squinting uneasily at people around him. "What's he mean by that? Illusion?"
Wolf Dreamer ignored the question. "One Who Cries tells me the water has ceased to run. Gather your things."
"You will protect us?" Buffalo Back called.
"My soul is yours. We walk together in One." Wolf Dreamer smiled radiantly and walked back down the slope to Heron's shelter.