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People of the Wolf(20)

By:W. Michael Gear


"Yes, you young fool. You've got competition. Remember that." She winked at him, then grabbed his sleeve and flung him forward into a shambling trot.





Chapter 7



Rising smoke from dung fires caught the first tints of morning as it twisted upward in the bare breeze. Cold blue shadows crept back, clinging against the drifts. Crow Caller's band hustled through camp, chattering about the trek north, watching Runs In Light lead his people southward.

Dancing Fox laced her parka tighter and secured the pack on her back, the tump line from which the pack hung biting into her forehead. She secretly followed Light with her eyes. When he reached the top of the ridge, he turned, looking

back, sunlight gleaming from the wolf hide over his shoulders. He bent and placed a rock atop another.

The trail.

She straightened, stomach tingling in fear. Did she have the courage to defy—

"Take your eyes off him," Crow Caller demanded from behind her. "If you want your eyes to stay in your head."

She whirled to face him. "I didn't do anything!"

"And you'd better not." He grinned without humor and reached in his pocket to retrieve a small tan sack. She recognized it: his collection of hair and personal articles through which he controlled her soul. He swung it ominously before her wide eyes, glancing to Runs In Light, then back, withered face hardening. "Keep your thoughts on me, woman!"

Jerking away, she said shakily, "I'll think whatever thoughts I want, husband. You may control my soul but not my mind."

He gripped her arm tightly, shaking her so hard she thought her neck would snap. "You like punishment, eh?"

"No, I—"

' 'Well, you're heading for more!'' He shoved her backward and strode haughtily away.

Dancing Fox secured her tump line again and followed slowly as he weaved through the tangle of people to the front of the procession. She kept her eyes down to avoid seeing the curious looks, the stolid expressions masking thoughts.

They climbed up to the wind-blasted ridge in single file, a weary people with nowhere to go. Ragged, hungry, their tattered caribou-hide clothing worn thin, they marched into the wind. Some looked over their shoulders, peering uneasily at Runs In Light's band where they threaded into the distance.

Dancing Fox shot one last look at Mammoth Camp, the place where her world had changed. Her love had gone cold when she'd been given to Crow Caller. Her father had thrown her to him for services rendered like an old blanket. When he'd died, she hadn't mourned.

So much of her life had been twisted like a hare from its hole. So many hopes and desires smashed and broken there under the white-patched brown hides of mammoth. Now she walked away; married, possessed by Crow Caller, who crawled onto her each night, spreading her legs, thrusting

and going limp. Thank the Blessed Star People he was brief about it. Shame burned up her cheeks.

Behind, Mammoth Camp would slowly sink into the ground. The shelters would rot away, the bits of bone desiccating and splintering in the Long Light. The body wastes of the People would become fodder for beetles and bugs. The dead, their souls glistening above, would not only house insects,- but feed the crows and gulls. Maybe a passing wolf would chew on them. The bones would be scattered, mice crawling through the hollow skulls. Some of the debris left behind would wash away, the rest would be slowly buried until nothing but tussock grasses, sedge, and wormwood remained.

"Only my pain will last forever," she whispered.

She winced at the burning that lanced through her with each step. She swung her legs wide to avoid chafing the places her husband had torn the night before. The bites on her breasts hurt where the caribou-fawn hair of her skins rubbed.

She cast a hard glance at Crow Caller's straight back where he marched at the lead. Hatred blocked her pain for a moment. You want me to think of you, old man? Yes, I will. She concentrated on filling her mind with so much hate, she could barely think at all. Her aches receded into nothingness. I hate you, she chanted silently over and over.

For hours they walked until they reached a rocky ridge they had to climb on hands and knees. Panting to the top, Fox stood for a moment surveying the land. Father Sun hung low on the distant horizon, wavering through clouds to dapple the white windswept wilderness in irregular patterns.

"Let's go," Crow Caller commanded as he passed her, slapping her arm.

She sighed and struggled down the slippery rocks onto a flat plain. Huge boulder outcrops dotted the expanse, drifts piled twenty feet high at their bases. Sunlight reflected so brilliantly from the snow, it almost blinded. She pulled her leather snow blinders from her pack and strung the slitted goggles over her head.

Raven Hunter roamed wide, his black shape like a fly on fat as he climbed each drift in search of mammoth or Grandfather White Bear. Broken Branch had warned them not to club their bear dogs to death, but hunger had overcome sense.