"I'm joking, girl. I don't care about his curses. His Power's gone. He can't hurt me or you."
They held each other's eyes for a moment, probing the other's soul.
"I'm sorry I spurned you," Talon whispered miserably. "I worried about what people would think of me. And now look." She gave a halfhearted wave. "Those I lived with stumble off and leave me. And who takes time to offer encouragement? A cursed woman thrown out by that idiot, Crow Caller."
"Come on." Dancing Fox smiled and put her arm around the old woman's bony shoulders. "Let's go. Raven Hunter will bring me something tonight. I'll share with you. Just keep trying for me, all right?"
"Crow Caller will try to bury us both, you know?" As an afterthought, she added, "If he lives that long."
"If . . ." Fox muttered, helping support the old woman, feeling the cold seeping up through her own legs, knowing how close she was to collapse.
"Sure," Talon grumbled. "With all of us hating him so much, it ought to kill him."
Silently, Fox hoped the old woman was right.
Snowshoes were unstrung from packs and tied with knots to long boots. Warily, the People walked out into the open. Keen eyes scanning the snow, searching for tracks left by caribou, musk ox, or a rare moose. To the side, fox trotted close enough to identify them before hastening away. As the Long Dark grew out of the north, they dug into the drifts for shelter.
Runs In Light chewed a thin strip of raw frozen meat. The warm taste of ox lay lightly on his tongue, saliva running in his mouth. So little. One hearty meal. Enough to keep them alive. Where was mammoth? A few of the beasts should have been sweeping the snow with their huge tusks. Where were the caribou?
But the Dream had been so vivid.
He reluctantly let his eyes drift over their shelter. Children already lay snuggled under robes in the comer, their mothers huddled together beside them. Men slouched bleakly against the irregular ice walls. No one met his eyes. They talked as if he wasn't there. All but Broken Branch, who ambled over, helping him scoop a place for his robes out of the snow.
"Am I an outcast, Grandmother?" he asked softly.
She sniffed in the darkness, a mittened hand resting lightly on his knee. "Wolf Dream, boy. It'll lead us."
"Will it?"
"Of course. Wolf's just seeing if we're worthy."
He bowed his head and long black hair tumbled down over his chest. Fumbling with the laces on his boots, he asked, "What if it was just hunger playing with my mind?"
"Hunger—or a knock in the head—it doesn't matter what brings the Dream ... so long as it comes."
He glanced around the dimly lit shelter. "They won't look at me."
Her taloned fingers tightened on his knee. "So? You need their approval before you believe what Wolf told you?"
"I'm not cer—"
' 'If you do, you've no business being here* Get out there in the darkness and call Wolf again!"
She mumbled incoherently after that, waving her arms in irritation as she waddled away on stringy legs, a gleam of stubborn faith lighting her old eyes.
Crazy old woman. What did she know? He'd tried calling Wolf a hundred times, but no answer came. And the memory of the Power that had supported him when he faced Crow Caller grew dimmer every day, hanging in the back of his mind like a vanished wraith.
"Wolf Dream," the old woman whispered gruffly as she nodded off to exhausted sleep. "Wolf Dream."
Runs In Light curled into a fetal ball and pulled his robes over his head, letting the warm blackness soothe his inner fears.
He slung his pack over his shoulder the next morning and strode to where Jumping Hare and Singing Wolf talked animatedly. As he neared, their conversation died, their angry eyes accusing him.
"I . . ." He fumbled for words, smiling imploringly. "Is everything ready here?"
"Of course," Singing Wolf told him stiffly.
He nodded, avoiding people's stares as he walked to the end of the line to stand beside Broken Branch. Jumping Hare took the lead, swinging out on his snowshoes. That day, and the next, forever, he limited his world to placing one step ahead of the next, calling Wolf with every breath. In his memory the green meadows and glistening hides of the animals shone in that vast lushness.
Chapter 13
Dark clouds roiled on the horizon, the scent of a storm riding the chill wind. Fading sunlight lay in streaks of rusty gold across Talon's ancient face. The old woman shivered in Dancing Fox's arms, her whole body spasming.
"Stay alive," Fox pleaded. "Live, Grandmother. Live."
She pulled the worn caribou hide around them, but one hide was hardly enough to keep them warm despite the insulating layer of snow. They'd wandered down from the heights into the flats. Here, they found no places where the snow had been blown free of the surface. No exposed dung, no caribou or sphagnum moss, no willow or birch.