People of the Wolf(8)

Of course they hadn't named it. The People wouldn't name a baby until it passed five Long Darks to prove it would live-. Until that time, a baby was an animal anyway. It didn't turn human until it learned to talk, and think, and began to become one of the People. That's when a human soul would come—during a Dream—and find a home in a child.

Singing Wolf, Laughing Sunshine's husband, strode forward to embrace his wife and take the child from Fox's arms. He laid the baby in Sunshine's reluctant hands. One by one the People lifted the frozen flaps of their shelters and stumbled awkwardly to their feet. Some swayed, dizzy from hunger.

The People were tall and straight, their skin browned in the snowy glare. Squint lines had been etched tight around their eyes and mouths, a legacy of sun, wind, and storm. Wide lips meant for laughter had grown thin, futility gleaming behind pain-sharpened eyes. Wind Woman's fingers caught their tailored furs, old grease stains shining blackly in the gray ness. Against the subdued light, they looked soft and rounded in their mounds of hides, a people as worn as the polished glacial cobbles they camped on.

In a solemn line, they walked, all singing, following Sunshine as she plodded unsteadily around the ice-packed shel-

ters to the drifts beyond. She started up a slope, kicking footholds in the white crust. Stumbling, she nearly dropped her child. Hugging it to her breast, she took a deep breath, and continued.

Following haltingly in her footsteps, the People crossed to the other side. Here and there the dead lay visible, parts of their bodies twisting gruesomely from the snow. The old had died first. In the early days they had quietly wandered out into the vast wind-ripped wilderness to die alone, as was their right. Later, as strength failed, the elderly had frozen in their robes, refusing to eat.

Sunshine placed the baby on the top of the drift, dropping to her knees, sobbing her anguish. Around and below her, the People sang, voices raised in the song of death, hoping to send the nameless infant to the Star People.

Crow Caller raised his hands, turning to look at them. "It was only a girl!" he shouted. "Let's get this over with quickly so we can get back to the shelters."

Sunshine's cries halted abruptly as she turned her swollen eyes to stare imploringly at the old shaman.

Dancing Fox lifted a brow, anger searing her breast when she saw the devastated look in Sunshine's eyes. "Shut up, husband," she murmured in a low voice that shook. "Any child is precious."

"Are you so anxious to have me fill you that you'll take any result? Keep your mouth—"

"Hardly."

He jerked around to glare at her. "Brave, eh? I ought to curse your womb so you'll never give birth."

"Would you?" she responded spitefully. "I'd be grateful."

A low murmuring eddied through the gathering, people frowning at Fox's defiance. A young woman didn't speak so to an elder—especially if he was her husband. As Fox glanced at the condemning eyes, a tingling invaded her stomach. She'd tried all her life to obey the rules. Why could she never quite manage?

Crow Caller lifted his chin slowly, rage gleaming in his one black eye. He stabbed a mittened hand toward her. "You see? Evidence that women are less than nothing—dirt useful only for growing a man's seed."

"It's true," the youth, Eagle Cries, wailed from the back of the gathering. "Everyone knows it. Let's hurry and get back to the shelters!"

"Listen—" Crow Caller began.

"You fools," a fragile old voice interrupted, resounding from the last shelter. ' 'Who do you think wiped your butts when you were babes? Who wiped your tears when you were frightened? Eh, your fathers?"

People turned, watching pensively as Broken Branch, the oldest member of the band, struggled from beneath the heavy hide flap to hobble forward. Brittle gray hair stuck out at odd angles from beneath her arctic fox hood. The nostrils of her preposterously sharp nose flared; her ancient brown eyes squinted in what everyone recognized as utter disdain. The People faded back, clearing a path for her.

When she reached the top of the hill, she gazed down at the crowd menacingly, pinning each man with an evil stare. A few puffed out their chests defiantly, most dropped their gazes to show respect.

She waved a hand as though dismissing all of them. "What are you doing arguing when a member of our clan is dead?" Wind Woman accented her words by gusting ferociously over the drifts. People grabbed each other to steady themselves. "You ought to be thinking about how we can keep anyone else from dying!"

"Yes," Crow Caller spat, eyeing her askance. "We must leave here. Death stalks each of us—"

"Don't agree with me, you old fake," Broken Branch accused.