People of the Wolf(43)

"Grandmother?" Red Star, a five-year-old girl with wide brown eyes and a cadaverously thin face, called. She weakly tugged the hood over Broken Branch's head.

"Hmm?"

"Grandmother, I'm cold." She tightened her hold on the fish-bone doll clamped in a death grip against her cheek.

Broken Branch roused herself, rubbing fists into her eyes

before staring down at the child. Red Star looked up, blinking slowly, lashes crusted with ice. She lifted her arms, begging to be taken.

"Come on, child," Broken Branch murmured tenderly, picking the girl up and sitting her in her lap. She wrapped ice-stiff robes around them both and squeezed Red Star hard, kissing her forehead.

"Thank you." The child sighed, leaning tiredly against the old woman's chest. She took off one mitten to tuck a finger in her mouth, sucking softly. "I'm hungry."

"I know you are. But it won't be long now. Wolf Dreamer's coming back real soon. He'll get us out of this mess. He's probably out talking to Wolf right now."

Red Star frowned disbelievingly. "Are you lying to me because I'm little?"

"Of course not," Broken Branch protested with hurt pride. "He's coming back. You'll see."

"Maybe he's dead and can't."

"Who told you that?"

Red Star tilted her head awkwardly as though hesitant about, telling. "Well ..."

"Come on. Who can you tell if not me?" Broken Branch wheedled.

"Singing Wolf said maybe Grandfather White Bear ate him and we were all going to die for following him."

Broken Branch puckered her lips disdainfully. "Well, Singing Wolf's a fool. You listen to me. I've lived twice as long as he has and I know the way the world works. Wolf Dreamer's coming back."

Red Star's stomach rumbled and she dropped a tiny hand to pat it. "It's been growling and knotting up."

"Maybe one of the Monster Children came down and crawled in there, huh?"

Red Star laughed weakly, incredulous. "You know they never come out of the sky.''

"Don't they?"

- The girl shook her head. "No. That's why we don't have to be afraid of them. They're trapped in the rainbow lights, locked there for all time."

Broken Branch patted her frigid cheek, smiling. "You remember the old stories pretty good, don't you?"

"You told me I had to. 'Member?"

"Did I?"

"Uh-huh. When I was little. You told me you'd beat my butt if I forgot any of them."

"Good for me. It worked."

Red Star nuzzled her cheek against the old woman's furs, something else clearly on her mind. Broken Branch lifted a -mittened hand to trace the furrows in the young forehead.

"What are these? You trying to look like me?"

The girl glanced up timidly, eyes dark and brooding inside her gray fur hood. "Grandmother, what's death like?"

A tight band constricted around her heart. She spewed an exhale and hugged the child fiercely. She'd wondered that herself a time or two. "Oh, it's not so bad. Unless some old—"

"But what if a bear comes and swallows me while I'm still alive?"

Broken Branch took the stone knife from her belt, twisting it so the obsidian blade glinted menacingly in the dim light. "If a bear did that, I'd slice his gut wide open to get you back."

"But, what would it feel like ... if ... if the bear ran away and you couldn't find me?"

"Well," Broken Branch whispered, contemplating the cold blue shadows clinging to the irregular patches in the ceiling. "It feels like going to sleep. You know how you kind of drift off. One minute you're awake and the next you're not?"

Red Star nodded. "It doesn't hurt real bad?"

"No, child, not for long."

"Maybe it just lasts a minute?"

"Oh, less than that even. You'd hardly know."

Red Star heaved a small breath of relief, sucking her finger again as she rubbed the painted muskrat fur of her doll's face against her itching nose. "I was worried about it."

"I could tell."

"Salmon Tail said it hurt for a long time, that you screamed and screamed until the Soul Eaters came to get you."

"He's only seven," she growled. "What does he know?"

"Throws Bones was his uncle. He said he could hear him groaning for days after the bear got him."

"Bah! Throws Bones was such a pain he probably gave

old Grandfather White Bear indigestion and that's what Salmon Tail heard."

Red Star sighed patiently, as though she was thinking about it while she blinked at Broken Branch's hide-booted foot. "What happens afterward?"

"You mean after death?" The girl nodded. "Well, when you wake up, you're flying among the stars, soaring just like Eagle. You get to—"