People of the Wolf(84)

The cow screamed again, brought up short by the angular black rocks. She shifted, one thick leg resting on the rock as her trunk sought him, picked up his scent, head extended forward, trunk reaching.

She staggered as the rock crumbled under her heavy foot, backing off, startled by what she'd almost done.

Heart hammering, One Who Cries waited where he'd crawled into a sheltering niche in the rock. As her trunk swung away, he scuttled farther. The cow squealed angrily, pounding around the outcrop, trying to circle his position. He fitted the last of his foreshafts into the dart body, twisting it into place, checking quickly to make sure it sat in the shaft straight. He puffed a final breath. The last shot.

"That's it!" he taunted. "Chase me! Come on! Lose all your sense! Be mad, Mother! Mad to the point of blood rage!"

He had room now. Circling his arms to keep her attention,

he shrieked and hollered. The cow stopped, tearing the frozen ground as she wheeled, snorting.

One Who Cries leapt, his last dart in hand, and lashed it forward, the atlatl providing two hundred times the power of his unaided hand.

The dart shot true, planting itself in the thinner hide behind the jaw—driving the foreshaft deep. The spent shaft separated to clatter noisily at her feet. The cow went crazy. Head up, trunk extended, she rushed forward.

One Who Cries screamed in fear, casting his atlatl to one side, running unencumbered for the edge of the rocks. The cow roared slathering wrath—the very earth shaking as she bore down on him. Not once did One Who Cries look back. His every thought centered on running, on picking his path through the uneven footing as he flew for the edge of the rock outcrop.

He made it, turning the corner, leaping nimbly along the path he'd cleared hours earlier. Legs pumping prodigiously, he bounded along the edge of the drop-off, one last jump taking him to firmer ground.

Heart thundering, he looked back, seeing the cow round the bend, seeing startled fear in her eyes as the gully appeared under her feet. She slid forward, legs locked.

Beneath her, the undercutting excavations One Who Cries and Singing Wolf had dug with such labor from the permafrost collapsed. The cow teetered, trunk whipping for balance. So much weight falls slowly at first. She had time to voice a final shriek as she toppled.

The ground slapped up at One Who Cries as her huge body slammed the earth. The sound of snapping bone seemed to stick in his ears. Then it was over. A rasping—like grinding ice—blasted from the cow's mighty lungs.

One Who Cries climbed up over the rocks, well out of harm's way, peering carefully over the drop-off. The redhaired trunk quivered, blood leaking from the mammoth's mouth. A frightened black eye stared up at him.

Wouldn't be long now. She couldn't breathe down there, the very weight of her body would smother her. She couldn't stand, her snapped limbs powerless. The top ear batted back and forth, her trunk questing, probing, determining the re-

ality of her death. The ragged wisp of tail slapped behind her.

Singing Wolf called, "Thought she had you for a second there at the beginning."

One Who Cries closed his eyes, sighing. He looked down. "Yes, Mother, you almost did get me, huh? I'll relive that moment forever."

Singing Wolf stood on the hill, downwind, some three dart throws away, waving with his hands. Green Water, Laughing Sunshine, and the rest would come now. They would all begin the butchering process, rendering the huge cow for all they could take before beginning the long trek back to Heron's valley.

Puffing out his cheeks, One Who Cries shook his head at the huge beast, now still in death. "Another handsbreadth, Mother, and you'd have stomped me into red mush. Blessed Stars, there's got to be an easier way."

He sagged on the rock, remembering.

For a long time he looked at the dead mammoth, sadness and regret welling in his heart. Somberly, he went down to kneel by the mammoth's huge head and stroke it gently. From the sacred pouch hanging around his neck, he took the special amulets, breathed on them, and began the process of singing the cow's soul to the Blessed Star People.

The new darts had worked. Never had One Who Cries driven a point so deeply into animal flesh before. As they cut each of the foreshafts from the carcass, Singing Wolf nodded, muttering under his breath as he examined the depth of the wound.

"Still got a problem with the hafting. Can you make the point thinner at the base?"

One Who Cries rubbed his mashed nose with a bloody finger, frowning. "No, it'll break too easy on impact. I tried that, remember?"

"Maybe a longer point?" Singing Wolf asked. "Not quite as wide as this one?"

"Thought you said the People didn't make different styles of points."

Singing Wolf shrugged, sheepishly.