People of the Wolf(41)

"Do you . . . know him?"

Heron nodded, exhaling slowly. "Your father."

Runs In Light's eyes narrowed in bewilderment. "Seal Paw was my-*-"

"Seal Paw adopted you. No, the man in the Dream is your real father." Her smile twisted. "And you'd trade him a son for a son? Interesting. What does that mean?''

"I don't know."

A long silence passed.

"Perhaps." Heron pondered. "I'm missing something. A rainbow is the road of colors that leads to the Monster Children's world up north; it takes a Dreamer smack into the middle of their war. Is that what this is about? Good fighting evil?"

"Maybe."

"You're helpful, aren't you?"

He blinked in embarrassment. "I never understand my Dreams. They leave me ... well ..."

"We'll have to do something about that."

"What?"

"We'll talk about it later. Right now, tell me how the Dream made you feel. Did you think that the People would die at the hands of the Others? At the hands of your father?"

"Wolf told me how to ..." He floundered, tilting his head uncertainly.

"How to what?"

Runs In Light shifted his gaze to the glowing coals of the fire. "There's a hole in the Big Ice."

' 'Wolf showed it to you?''

He nodded tautly. "He said if we went that way, the People would be saved."

Heron's brow furrowed deeply. She puffed a long exhale. "Then you'd better get going. I've seen the Others coming fast. You don't have much time."





Chapter 15



One Who Cries crawled up to push the drifted snow out of the shelter tunnel. Bad choice that, there hadn't been time to dig a dipped entranceway to act as a cold trap. Wind sucked the snow past, the world a cloud of white. He pondered the possibilities of moving. He might be able to keep his direction by the wind. But what good would that do? They could walk over a cliff, flounder in a morass of soft-packed willows or larch. And where would they go? Worse, the children, the weakest, would fall behind . . . lost from the rest.

He slumped on the snow, staring blankly at the unending vortex of the storm. Cold leached up from the ice below. The storm might blow for days.

"It's over," he murmured.

With no strength to hunt, only another carcass could keep them alive, render up the life it had once held.

"Maybe we should have gone north," he whispered, looking to where Green Water slept. Her broad nose barely moved

with the breath of life. "I'm sorry, wife. So sorry. I led you

out here, following a fool." '

He reached out to caress her hand, feeling the cold, knowing it wouldn't be such a bad death. Better than rotting from some sickness, wasting away. The wolves would get them in the end.

A sudden ironic thought dawned. He looked back to the windswept white plain, eyes searching for movement. "Was that it, Wolf? Did you fool the boy, lure him here to feed your fleshly brothers?''

He braced his forehead against his arm, laughing softly. "I guess I'm willing. Everybody has to provide for their own."

"Because we're all one, my husband," Green Water said, voice taking on the awed speech-giving tone of the elders around the blazing night fires of winter. "We were stars once. Father Sun threw us out of heaven. Muskrat saw us falling and dove into the sea, bringing up dirt so our landing would be soft. Then Father Sun blew life into us and other falling stars, making us brothers, all the same. We eat wolves; they eat us. It's all the same life."

"You're being awfully cairn about this."

She shrugged weakly.

He crawled back to lie beside her, slipping an arm beneath her head and nuzzling her cheek with his own. "But who will pray us back up to the stars?"

Wind Woman howled outside, snow flitting in to frost their hides and sting their faces.

"Maybe Wolf will,"

"I hope so."

His mittened hand clutching Green Water's, he closed his eyes and dozed. In the dream, he lived again, a young man. Green Water's shy smile and knowing eyes followed him as he strutted before her, a proud hunter, his first solo kill laid before the fire. Even then she'd seen through his laughter, seeing the man beneath. Green Water always knew. She always had everything ordered, each event planned for and accepted. Not even the death of their first child—starving so early that Long Dark—had disturbed her poise. Death came. She grieved, and accepted, planning for the future.

Such a woman ... wasted on him.

Snow slid down on top of him. Had that much built up? He sighed, wondering if there was a purpose in climbing back up, pushing it away so they could breathe. Smothering would be a quicker death, a shorter suffering.

Someone's dog whined. But then, someone's dog was always whining. Dogs were that way. Either whining, or fighting, or eating up the food.