People of the Wolf(2)

From blood smear to blood smear, he worked out the trail, growing uneasy as the distance stretched between him and camp. Wind Woman's breath shifted across the land, blowing snow to fill his tracks. The eyes of the Long Dark lay heavy and menacing upon him.

He gazed upward, murmuring to the spirits, "Leave me alone. I must find wolf. Don't eat my soul . . . don't. . . ." The drain on his soul abated, but the presence clung in the air, floating, waiting to see if his honor proved worthy.

In the lee of a drift, he studied the tracks. Wolf had stopped here and even lain down for a short while. A blacker patch of blood stained the snow.

Runs In Light's fingers trembled inside the heavy mittens as he used a stone dart point to carefully pry the frozen blood from the ice. Heedless of the wolf hair sticking to it, he chewed, grimacing at the gut-juice taste. Food. The first he'd enjoyed in four days.

Four days? The Dreamer's number. His mother had told him that. A day for each of the directions to bring the soul awake.

He stood, slowly scanning the landscape, whispering, "You're here, wolf. I feel your spirit close."

In the Long Dark, the white waste gleamed deep blue, shadows of purple creeping along the drifts. To the north, the land undulated, jagged peaks shining starkly in the light of the Star People above.

Eyes to the snow, he clutched his weapons: two darts, both as long as he was tall, and his atlatl, blessed by the blood of mammoth and Grandfather White Bear. He shuffled ahead,-pace just fast enough to keep warm. Hunger stalked his rubbery legs as he stalked his prey.

Wind-sculpted snow wavered, shimmering in his tear-blurred eyes. How long since he'd slept? Two days?

"Dream Hunt?" he muttered hoarsely, wondering at the unreal sensations; hunger and fatigue played with his mind and senses. He staggered, dazed by his swirling balance.

"I must catch you, wolf."

The soul eaters of the Long Dark drifted closer, eerie whispers haunting his ears. He clamped his jaw tightly, crying, "The People need meat. Hear me, wolf? We're starving!"

An age-cracked voice murmured in Light's shifting memory, "Sun Father's losing his strength. Cloud Mother wraps herself around Blue Sky Man and sucks up his warmth." The old shaman, Crow Caller, had blinked, one eye black, the other white with blindness as he told the People of coming famine.

Seeing only snow, the aged leader had prophesied, "This year mammoth will die. Musk ox will die. Caribou will stay far south with buffalo. The People will wither."

And it was so. The melting time during the Long Light had barely lasted through one turning of Moon Woman's face. Then Cloud Mother had covered the skies. Constant rain and snow raged out of the north to kill the Long Light. Cold lay heavy on the land when the grasses, willows, and tundra plants should have grown tall to feed mammoth.

Crow Caller spent his time singing, praying for a Dream. The old shaman trapped Seagull once and twisted his neck four turns. The limp bird in his callused brown hands, he'd sliced through the down feathers with an obsidian blade to expose the guts. He'd peered, his one good eye gleaming, to see what news Seagull brought from so far out among the floating ice mountains on the great salt water to the north.

"Back," he had croaked. "We must go north . . . back the way we came."

The People had looked at each other anxiously, remembering the ones who pursued them, the ones they called the Others: mammoth hunters like themselves, but men who murdered and chased the People from the fertile hunting grounds to the north. Could the People go back? Could they-face those fierce warriors?

Once—so the elders told—the People had lived on the other side of the huge mountains to the west. There, Father Sun had given them a wondrous land of rivers abounding in grassy plains rich in game. Then the Others had come, driving them from the land, pushing them north and east against the salt water. Father Sun, in his wisdom, had given them a new land at the mouth of the Big River where they could see the Big Ice extending out into the salt water. The Others had followed, pushing the People away from the- lush hunting grounds at the mouth of the Big River, pushing them down this last long valley, ever to the south. Now the ground rose, the mountains hemming them from the west, the Big Ice encroaching from the east. What was left? And behind the Others continued to push, forcing the People ever higher into the rocky hills devoid of game.

So the elders debated while the People worried. Was there enough game in this high rocky country where little grass grew for mammoth and caribou? What would the People do?

And then the young hunter called One Who Cries had run into camp, calling to all that he'd found three dead mam-

moths. So they'd talked. Against Crow Caller's judgment, the People had gone farther south to butcher the giant beasts, eating their way into the carcasses while the Long Dark grew longer over their heads, chasing Father Sun to his southern home.