from the long walk, but she set out down the hill anyway.
"We'll make us up a fire and have liver and heart tonight,
girl! What a hunter you made! Runs In Light will jump for
joy to marry you."
Dancing Fox glowed with joy. Yes, Runs In Light would be proud of her. Knowing she would soon be in his arms, the thought of bearing children didn't seem so bad after all. She longed to feel his arms around her, holding her on the long winter nights.
Chapter 21
Runs In Light stood silhouetted on the ridge crest above Heron's valley, his waist-length black hair blowing in the wind. Dressed in summer fox skins, his muscles bulged in the golden daylight. Below, the People threaded their way in the mushy paths between the receding drifts. Pools of water lay silver in the slanting sun. He crossed his arms over his
chest defensively, hoping to ease some of his pain. There they go. I feel like an abandoned shell: empty and useless.
Heron ambled leisurely along the ridge to stand beside him, a hand up to shield her eyes against the glare of Father Sun. Her clean hide dress smelled of sulfur from the hot springs. "Not going?"
"How could I?" he asked bitterly. "What would they have said? The Wolf Dream ..."
"They lived," she reminded. "But I'm glad you're not going."
"Why?"
"You're not ready yet."
He frowned, turning to search her lined face, trying to read the glinting eyes. "How do you know?"
"We looked into each other's eyes once. Seventeen Long Lights ago. You sought me even then—for a reason." She smiled, brown lips hiding her worn and missing teeth. "No, you don't recall . . . but you did."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't." She probed his eyes deeply, as if searching his soul. "Whether you know it or not, Wolf Dreamer, you made your choice. You chose me ... my way. I saw for certain the day you Dreamed the caribou in. Like me, the Power taunts you, stirs your mind, forces you toward the blinding light inside,'"
Fear tingled across his chest, tight, prickling. "I'm not interested in Power. Power is for someone else who—"
"Who what?"
"Who's more worthy."
She chuckled softly, shaking her gray head. "Giving in to cowardice, are you?"
He stiffened, stung deeply. "If I'm giving in to anything, it's good sense. I've been fooling myself."
"You like the feel of Dreaming, don't you?"
"Of course," he admitted. The feel soothed him like a warm fire on a cold winter's night.
' 'But you don't like it enough to give up your soul for it? You want to dabble like a child playing with fire, hoping you never have to surrender your precious self to know the secrets of the flame."
"I'm Runs In Light. Bastard child of an Other," he protested hotly. "I'm not—"
"So what?" She cocked her withered head, arching an eyebrow.
Dread and a longing to return to the old days welled inside him. Silently he cried out, pleading for the safety he'd felt before his Dream Walk. Oh, he'd been hungry, but his soul had been whole and untormented. Now he felt as fragmented as a shattered dart point. "I'm not even really one of the People. I'm unworthy!"
"Why?"
"I don't fit anymore."
"Nobody ever feels like they fit. It's part of the curse of being human."
"I used to fit—before Wolf called me."
"And why don't you think you fit now?"
He shuffled his feet nervously, struggling to find himself beneath the malaise of Dream undercurrents. "I'm different now."
' 'Of course you are."
A lump swelled in his throat, making it difficult to talk. "Why am I?"
"Because you've touched the soul of the world. You've seen the Monster Children's fight up close, heard the thunderous silence of their clashing weapons, and seen the brilliant darkness of your own soul reflected in their eyes."
"Words," he said gruffly, but their truth pounded loudly inside him like a warning drum. "Just words."
"Yes, you're different. Runs In Light died when Wolf called him from Mammoth Camp."
Staring out across the rocky wilderness shimmering in the sun, he sucked in a halting breath. I'm half-dead, she's right about that. Why can't I just live anymore? Where's Dancing Fox? What's happened to me? All I want is the woman I love, a safe camp, and to watch my children grow. Is that such a terrible thing ?
Heron hobbled over to stand in front of him, then grabbed one of the locks of his hair that fluttered in the wind and tugged hard to make him look down at her. "Don't you see what you're doing?"
"No."
"You're grasping frantically to pull the threads of Runs In Light back together, when you ought to be letting him go completely."