The First Americans Series
Beyond the Sea of Ice
Corridor of Storms
Forbidden Land
Walkers of the Wind
The Sacred Stones
Thunder in the Sky
Edge of the World
Shadow of the Watching Star
Face of the Rising Sun
and
Wolves of the Dawn
Watch for
Spirit Moon
in summer 2000
THE
FIRST
AMERICANS
WALKERS OF THE WIND
WILLIAM SARABANDE
WALKERS OF THE WIND
A
Bantam Book still published by arrangement with
Book Creations Inc. Bantam edition
September 1990
Produced by Book Creations Inc. Lyle
Kenyan Engel, Founder
All rights reserved.
Copyright [*copy] 1990 by Book Creations
Inc.
Cover art copyright [*copy] 1992 by Mark
Harrison.
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ISBN 0-553-28579-3
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
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OPM 19 18 17 16 15 14
To Laurie Rosin
-
one in a million!
The land burned-not with flame, not with heat, but
with the raw, savage colors of the Ice Age
autumn. The girl seemed to burn with the tundra as,
knee-deep in the dry, wind-whipped grasses of the
rolling Arctic steppe, she deliberately slowed
her pace and allowed old Grek to lead the other
girls and women on. With their heavily laden gathering
baskets hefted on their hips and the children and dogs
trotting at their sides, they were far too busy
chattering to notice that Naya had fallen behind. They
leaned into the wind, their dark hair streaming behind them.
The bone, shell, and stone-beaded leather fringes of their
garments flapped, tangled, and clicked noisily as
they hurried on with never a backward glance.
Naya stopped, waiting for old Grek to sense her
absence. When he did not, she smiled. She had
made a careful game of her sudden need to be
alone. No one had missed her. On and on walked
old Grek, proudly assuming the role of woman
watcher, aggressively stabbing the wind with his
bone-shafted, stone-tipped spears. Loudly and
respectfully he appealed to the lions, bears,
leaping cats, and wolves. The wind carried his deep
voice to Naya; she could hear it clearly.
"The women and children of Torka come, yes!" he
cried. "Grek leads them now to the lake,
yes! The women and children will drink! The women and children will
bathe! Look not with hungry eyes as they pass, for
Mother Below has made the lake for all creatures
who live upon her skin. Let us come safely through the
country of the flesh-eaters."
It occurred to Naya that she should be afraid to stand
alone in the country of the flesh-eaters; but the sun was
so warm and the day so fair that not even fear could chill
her-only pity could do that, and did. The men of the band were
hunting bear in the far hills, and she wondered if
her grandfather resented being with the females instead ofwiththe
other hunters, who were tracking the great three-pawed
bear that had been raiding the winter storage pits of the
P. Grek gave no sign of resentment. He
walked
arrogantly ahead of his charges in his timeworn shaggy
leggings and long-haired black shirt cut from the skin
of an adult bison. It took a big man to wear
such a heavy hide. Grek
was
big, and the shirt made him seem even bigger. With his
massive head bent and his broad back humped against
the wind, Naya understood why the children of the band called
him Bison Man.
A cloud passed before the sun. Naya
looked up. Shadows swept across the world, then
vanished as the cloud was consumed by the hard, dry wind.
The euphoria that had brought Naya to pause was
gone. She felt tired now, irritable. The fringes
of her lightweight coltskin dress were tangled from
the wind, and she did not savor the prospect of
separating them. The morning's gathering of lichens,
fungi, tubers, and the seeds and berries of the dying
summer had wearied her.
Naya scowled. She was all too easily wearied
these days. Was it any wonder? Soon the thirteenth
winter of her life would begin.
Thirteen!
The concept staggered her. It seemed an enormous
number of years for a girl who had yet to come to her
first time of blood.
True, the spirit of a woman's life would come to a
girl in its own good time, and she was not the only girl
in the band to come late to womanhood. Many a chant and
medicine smoke had been offered to the forces of
Creation on behalf of Swan, the headman's youngest
daughter, and Larani, daughter of the hunter Simu;
yet neither girl had come to her first time of blood even
though they were the same age as Naya.
She frowned as she thought about this. The
girls" slow maturation had prompted the older band
members to whisper with concern. Naya had seen the
women seeking omens in the organs of female
animals taken by hunters. The women assured the
headman that all boded well for the "new women
to be," but saw to it that Naya, Swan, and Larani
shared equally in the small, fatty glands that were cut
from above the kidneys of every kill. It was well-known
that rare and wondrous spirits lived in these little
glands-spirits that favored women and had the power to bring
girls more quickly to their time of blood.
Naya made a face of revulsion. She did not like
the taste of the little glands, but she always dutifully ate
her portion. Swan found them pleasant enough, and
Larani actually liked them. Nevertheless, while
Swan and Larani were visibly
blossoming toward impending womanhood, the
granddaughter of Grek still looked like a child.
She sighed wistfully. Swan had grown tall
during the last long winter, and Larani actually
looked
like a woman under her clothes. The hunters of the band were
gazing at her with new eyes. Soon gifts would be
brought to her parents, and she would become some man's
new woman.
Naya sighed again. No man looked at her as they
looked at Larani. She would always be called Little
Girl because she
was
little-
a
small, bird-boned, skinny sprout who would never
bleed as a woman bleeds, never be looked at by the
men of the band, and never be given gifts by those who would
wish to invite her away from the fire circle that she
had shared with her grandfather since the death of her parents
so many long years ago.
Old Grek promised that someday she would win the
finest gifts of all because she was the daughter of a great
shaman. He had told her that she would be mated to one
of the headman's sons. But Naya was not certain if
she believed him. Unlike Swan and Larani, she
was not growing up-she was simply growing
old backslash
Soon days and nights would pass and one morning she
would wake to find that her entire life had gone by.
She would limp around camp, mumbling about the past, and
sucking food through the rubble of her teeth.
The girl's eyes widened as she realized that the
distance between her and the others was much greater than
before. "Grek! Everybody! Wait!"
The wind blew the words back into her round little face.
Her small, perfectly matched, but oddly serrated
upper teeth chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. The
others walked on, not looking back. Not even
Squirrel Killer, her favorite among the
dogs, had missed her. Vexed, she hurried on.
Now a wild dog-or was it a dire wolf?-yapped
somewhere in the tawny, windswept hills to the east.
Naya turned, startled, to stare across the open,
rolling steppe toward the hills and the vast, tumbled,
ice-ridden mountain ranges that lay beyond. She could
see no sign of dog or wolf, but that did not mean
that one or more of these animals was not there.
She held her breath and listened, straining to see.
To become a straggler was asking to become meat for the
watching yellow-eyed carnivores of the wide,
savage steppe.
Yet, somehow, she did not feel threatened. The most
unusual sensations were sweeping through her body and
mind, as pleasant as they were disconcerting. She had
never felt like this before.
Her right hand strayed to her throat and rested there on
her newly strung necklet of berry beads. In
her gathering basket was a generous collection
of the seedy, summer-dried little fruits, which she had
at first mistaken for craneberries. Thinking them
pretty, she had made a necklet of them while the
other women and girls had been busy with their own
morning's gleaning. With a bone needle taken from the
feather-shaft quill case that she wore like a tiny
ornament inserted through the base of her nose, she had
carefully strung the berries onto a slender thong
ripped from the fringes of her knee-length dress. The
result had been a pretty adornment, and Naya
liked pretty things.
Now-and not for the first time since stringing the berries-she
absently raised the strand to her mouth and nervously
moved the tip of her tongue against the slick, oily
skin of the tiny orb of fruit. Although nearly
completely dehydrated, the berries still oozed a little
juice. The taste was subtle, decidedly sweet,
and pleasant.
Her pulse began to pound and leap. She laughed, then
stifled the sound. She was behaving so strangely!
Now her small right hand drifted downward . . .
lightly, questingly, to her newly budding breasts.
Larani would have laughed to see them; they were not really
breasts at all, not when compared to the wondrous
swellings upon the chest of the daughter of Simu
and Eneela. No, these were the breasts of Little Girl;
no larger than the minute shells that were sometimes found
along riverbanks. These were nothing to boast of.
Her mood suddenly shifted. Awash in the
sunlight, she was euphoric again, at perfect
equilibrium with the moment. The berries were a warm,
moist embrace around her neck. The world trembled
before her. Her dress suddenly felt hot,
suffocating. In one fluid motion, she peeled off
the garment.
Naked save for her necklet and calf-high
moccasins, Naya felt so much better that with a sudden
laugh she raised her arms and began to dance. She
whirled faster and faster until her long, plaited
hair spun outward, whipping and singing in the air like
twisted sinew.
Dizzy, she stopped. The world went on spinning.
Her braids coiled around her face, slapping her,
rousing pain as, crying out in surprise, she staggered,
then fell.
It took a moment for the world to stop moving. Puzzled
by her own behavior, Naya clambered shakily to her
feet and wiped her bruised knees with her palms.
For the first time since deliberately falling behind,
Naya's head cleared completely. She
felt a chill, a warning of winter.
Soon the time of the long dark would come to the northern
world. Hares, ptarmigan, owls, and foxes were already
changing color. Soon the great herds of grazing
animals would follow the sun over the edge of the earth,
and many a wolf, wild dog, and fox would follow.
Soon horses, camels, and mammoth would leave the
tundra to winter with moose and deer within the
wind-protected hills. Bears and lions would
seek their dens. Pikas, voles, squirrels, and
lemmings would go to ground. Rivers and ponds would
turn to ice, and fish would either seek deep water or
freeze. The sky would whiten with clouds and migrating
geese, and when the last of the winged ones was gone, Father
Above would close his yellow eye, wrap himself in
robes of storm darkness, and seek winter sleep in
the arms of his sister-the moon. Then the days of endless
night and cold would come. Then the People and the animals
of the world would go hungry as Spirit Sucker hunted the
earth, feeding upon the lives of the old and the weak . . .
and occasionally upon the young and the strong.
Naya trembled. Why think of winter when the wind still
sang of summer as it blew warm and hard across the
world? Entranced by the splendor of the moment, Naya
wanted to prolong the glorious day so that its
memory would warm her in the long dark times to come.
Moments passed. Again the dog yapped, a deeper
sound now, more threatening. Naya jumped, turned, and
saw nothing, but she felt eyes watching her. It was
definitely time to go.
"Wait!" she cried. "Wait for me!"
Umak laughed. In the high, sun-scorched
grasses beside him on the hill, Companion, his
wolflike hunting dog, cocked its gray head and
put back its ears in puzzlement. Then, not to be
outdone, the dog lifted its head and howled as though in
contest with the man.
Far below on the rolling grassland, Naya looked
back over her shoulder as she ran, tripped, then
went sprawling. In a moment she was on her feet
again, screaming as she
stumbled on, abandoning her dress and leaving her
gathering basket and its hopelessly scattered contents
where they lay.
The young man was the wolf who had deliberately set
dread into Naya's heart; it was his fault that Little
Girl was running in panic. But what else could he
have done when she had fallen behind the others? He had
wanted to shout a warning, to ask her what in the name of the
forces of Creation she thought she was doing there
alone, sucking on her berry beads and dancing naked
beneath the sun. But if Naya discovered that he was
following, she would reveal it to old Grek. And if
Grek found out that he had not been trusted to be sole
woman watcher, his pride would shrivel. Not a man
in the band would wish such shame upon old Grek. And
so, by the "luck" of a secret draw, Umak, elder
of the headman's twin sons, was hiding, shadowing the
old man, the women, and the children instead of where he wished
to be-tracking bear with the other hunters.
The words of Torka, his father, echoed in his head:
In protecting our women and children there is much honor!
They were strong words, as powerful as the headman himself.
The man who is chosen to protect the women and children
of the People holds the future of the band in his hands.
"Yes, yes, of course," Umak muttered
impatiently now as he moved resentfully forward
through the grass.
In his lightweight summer tunic and leggings of
caribou skin, Umak's lean, powerful young body
cut a narrow swath through the tawny hills as he
moved forward, being careful not to stand erect lest
Naya turn and see him. He lengthened his stride;
Little Girl was faster than he had thought possible, and
she had put herself beyond the protective
range of his spears. Until he was able to close the
distance between them, she was completely vulnerable.
"Either slow down or run faster, Little Girl!" he
muttered, wishing that he could shout the words. He howled
instead-a loud, deep, vicious howl.
Naya screamed.
"There!" Umak said, satisfied. "That will put
fire beneath your feet and speed you on your way
to safety." He would have added more, but Naya tripped
and fell again.
Umak stopped, ducking low within the dry, stony
depression of a streambed. The dog stopped beside him,
panting now, tongue lolling and slobbering. Umak's
long,
earth-eating stride had lessened the distance between him and the
girl considerably.
"Silly Little Girl. If only you knew that-it was
Umak, and not a wolf, who pursues you."
Naya was such a gullible child-amusing and clever and always
unpredictable, except when it came to satisfying
her appetite for food or pretty things. Everyone
smiled upon Naya. Everyone was amused by her. But
everyone worried over her increasingly headstrong
nature. Grek pampered her excessively, and it
was not a good thing to spoil children; eventually little
ones had to grow up and assume their full
responsibilities within the band. What Naya had
done today was irresponsible and dangerous to herself and
to those who might be forced to risk themselves on her
behalf.
Troubled by his thoughts, Umak edged his way
downhill. The lay of the land allowed him a view beyond
the rise that stood between Naya and the others: The
females had reached the reed-choked shore of a
small, shallow lake that shimmered in the wind. It was
beautiful. Umak smiled with pleasure at the sight
of it. Several of the women were already racing ahead,
casting off their garments as they sloshed into the cool
shallows. The children and pups and big, rangy dogs
followed to turn the water brown with their splashings.
It was evident that in the excitement of the moment, no
one had missed Naya. Umak frowned. Grek should
have noticed her absence long before now. He nodded
to himself. Torka had been right to send a man to keep
an eye on the old hunter- Grek was obviously
not the man he used to be.
Crouching low, he sought the concealment of grass, then
moved downward across the face of the hill, flat on
his belly with his spears extended forward and held in
both palms. He paused close to a
scrubby tangle of craneberry bushes. The sight
of the fruit caused him to salivate. The berries were
much larger than usual, dark and half-dried from the
effects of wind and sun. Nevertheless, Umak had not
tasted water since dawn, and a craneberry was a
craneberry. Even the most desiccated bit of
fruit would help to ease his thirst.
He reached for a handful of berries, tossed them
into his mouth, then instantly spat them out,
recoiling. Whatever the fruits were, they were
not
craneberries; a closer look at them and the shrub
that bore them affirmed this. Still spitting particles of
seed and half-dried pulp from his tongue, Umak
castigated himself for carelessness. Many summers and win
ters had come and gone since the five-year-old son
of the hunter Simu had eaten the flesh of an
unfamiliar fungus, but Umak still cringed at the
memory of the bloated little body, the grotesquely
swollen face, and the pitiful, gasping cries of the
dying child.
A sudden crack of thunder startled him. The sound
seemed to have come from directly overhead, but he had
seen no lightning, and the sky was clear. He frowned.
How could lightning strike out of a cloudless
sky? He looked across the wide, rolling river of
golden steppeland. Clouds were gathering over the
distant ranges like herds of woolly, growling
black animals. The thunderbolt had come from the west.
The clouds were massing now, forming into squall lines,
gradually extending their range to shadow the
foothills and the distant reaches of the summer-parched
plain. Soon the tundral lake would be in shadow.
Soon it would rain-at long last!
As Umak stared across the distances lightning veined the
sky and sent probing fingers of white-hot light
deep into the skin of the earth. The wind was growing much
stronger now, whipping the grasses and causing them
to lash his face. Remnants of golden pollen
rained upon him and caused his eyes and nostrils to itch
fiercely.
He stifled a sneeze. It was a wasted effort.
Companion sneezed with him-followed by another that was
twice as loud. Umak quickly curled his fingers around
the broad muzzle lest another such sneeze reveal
his presence to Naya.
The girl was facing toward him now, with her back to the
wind, listening and alert, tensed to sprint from danger.
Umak held his breath. Only after the longest, most
searching pause did she whirl and begin to run
again.
Had she seen him? For a moment he could have sworn that
their eyes had met. Something was different about her
stride-it was so intensely and unexpectedly sexual
that he stared after her in shock and amazement. A moment
ago he had been looking at a child. Now the sight of
her bare, shapely little bottom winking away in
panicked flight reminded him of the upturned tail
of a doe antelope racing provocatively across the
steppe, inviting all ready bucks to follow.
Warmth stirred within his loins. What a tiny thing
Naya was, all legs and nearly breastless, yet
she was heart-stoppingly lovely. His woman did not
look like this. No. Honee, the
mother of his two little ones, was fat,, with layerings of
skin in places where flesh should lie smooth. . . .
The dog whined and nuzzled Umak's free hand,
urging him to move on, but the young hunter paid no
heed. He stared at Naya until his eyes
burned, and even though the sun was beating on his back,
heating his hunting tunic until his skin seemed to be
liquefying beneath it, he made no attempt to move
or to look away. Unlike the sun, a man could
look at a woman without going blind.
Or could he? Naya was not a woman! She
was a child! But she would be a woman someday. And when that
time came, she would be his brother's woman. It had
been decided long ago: Naya was for his twin, for
Manaravak. Umak had no right to look at her at
all.
"And what or
whom
does Umak hunt, lying on his belly in this deep
grass?"
Flustered, Umak looked up in embarrassment as his
brother Manaravak elbowed through the grasses to lie
at his side. Companion thunked his tail in happy
greeting.
Umak's face flushed with shame. "I ... uh .
. . the granddaughter of Grek fell behind the others.
I've been seeing to it that she comes to no harm. How
long have you been trailing me?"
"Too long." Manaravak's handsome features
settled into an expression of speculation as he
clucked his tongue in affectionate admonition. He
was bigger and broader than Umak, longer of limb
and with more of their father than mother in his face. His eyes
narrowed thoughtfully-black eyes with all of the
reflected warmth and color of the sunlit plain
shimmering beneath dark, straight lashes.
"Umak keeps an eye on Naya, but who keeps
an eye on Umak?"
"Umak needs no one to keep an eye on him!
Umak is Shaman!"
"If this man were a lion, Shaman's life spirit would
be in Manaravak's belly, and Manaravak would be
spirting out his brother's bones by now!"
"Ha!" There was no amusement in Umak's
exclamation. "Companion would have alerted me
to danger-but not before I sensed it myself!" He stopped.
There was no duping Manaravak-he could smell
uncertainty in a man as readily as a wolf
perceives fear in its prey.
Umak's eyes narrowed as he met his brother's
piercing
gaze. It was not surprising that Manaravak was, in
many ways, more a beast than a man: A strange
fate had ripped the second born of Torka's
twins from his mother's arms, to be raised as an animal
by the elusive beast that men called wanawut.
Furred and fanged and more terrible than any other
carnivore, the wanawut was man and beast combined, with the
look of the former and all of the power and killing
potential of the latter.
When at last the forces of Creation had
conspired to kill the beast and reunite Manaravak with
his family, ten long autumns had passed and
Manaravak was as wild and savage as the creature
that had raised him as its own. Now, nearly another
ten autumns later, life within Torka's band had
gentled him. He had learned-if not mastered-the
language of his people. He no longer howled at the
moon or pounded the earth with his fists when he was
angry, nor did he move in the long, ambling
gait of the wanawut, with his knees bent and his head
extended grotesquely forward.
Whether walking or in repose, he now had an
easy grace about him, and when he ran, it was with all
of the lean, fluid power of a hunting lion. He used
a spear with ease and a dagger with pleasure, but he still
preferred his food raw, was afraid of fire, and
all too often chafed under the authority of his elders.
Now as Umak lay beside his brother, he sensed the
watchful, wary, and elusive wolf in
Manaravak-in the tension of his body and in the set of
his long, expressive mouth and in his eyes.
"Why are you not hunting with the others, Manaravak?"
Manaravak shrugged affably. "If Brother
Umak cannot hunt bear, Manaravak will not hunt
bear, too. Torka and Simu, they go off
one way. Dak and Demmi and Nantu go another.
This man Manaravak thinks that his brother cannot be
happy watching women, children, and an old man while
others hunt bear. I think that it will be a good thing if
together Manaravak and Umak watch over Bison
Man."
"You are considerate, my brother, but Torka will be
angry. We are a very small band, Manaravak, and
every hand that is not needed to guard the women and little ones will
be needed against the great bear."
Manaravak did not appear to have been listening as he
stared off through the grasses at Naya. "I see now
why you
watch. Maybe she is not so little anymore.
Maybe she is asking to be mated."
The autumn sun was not half as hot as the wave of
jealousy that seared Umak just as the inner wind of
Vision suddenly rose to speak through him:
"Before the time of the long dark turns the world white, the
child in Naya will die. Out of this death a new woman
will be born. ..."
"Manaravak's woman!"
Umak stared at his brother; were it not for the happily
lecherous look on Manaravak's face, he would not
have been certain if he had just spoken aloud
at all. The whispering Vision was dissolving like
vapors above the river at the rising of a winter
dawn. Like birth and death, the Seeing Wind came as
it would, when it would. But it had come to Umak often enough
for the People to name him Shaman. It had made him Wise
Man before he had become a man.
Yet now, although he was nearly twenty and a member
of the council of elders, he felt young and as ill at
ease as he always did when Vision came to him,
unbidden and unwelcome. It was one thing to know when the
caribou would come through the passes or when the first wedges
of waterfowl would fly out of the face of the rising sun
to become food for the P. It was another thing when the
Seeing came without being sought, consuming his thoughts and
rendering him completely vulnerable to his surroundings
and to the nightmare of his childhood-the old fear that he
was not his father's son at all, but the child of rape, the
offspring of the consummately powerful and evil shaman,
Navahk, who by some dark and vicious magic
implanted him within his mother's womb against her will ...
to take root before Torka set the seed of life
into Manaravak. Just thinking of it made him sweat.
"Look, Umak! Little Girl is catching up with the
others. Let us move closer before she enters the
lake and cannot be seen."
Deeply shaken, Umak realized that Manaravak
had risen and was making his way through the grasses, with
Companion following close at his side.
"Come, Umak! A better look is what we
need."
Umak did not move. Yes. Soon
Naya will be Manaravak's woman.
Why should he care? Why should he feel sick at the
thought of it?
The great three-pawed bear ambled across the
wind-scoured Arctic hills. Even here there was the
subtle, inescapable smell of Man-a stain upon the
wind or within the memory of the animal; the bear could not
tell. Hunters had driven her here-out of the
grassland and up onto this high ridge, where the
skeleton of the earth lay exposed and broken by the
elements. Slick-bottomed, uneven shards
shattered by frost slipped away beneath her massive
paws and sent her clambering desperately for
purchase. The steep slope would have allowed her none
even if her left forepaw had not been mutilated
by the crushing jaws of the big, grizzled male that had
blundered into her hunting territory the previous
spring. He had attempted to eat one of her cubs,
but she had eaten him instead. It had not
mattered that he was one of her own kind or that he had
sired her cubs. The cubs had grown fat on his
flesh.
But that was long ago. Spring and summer were far behind her
now, as dead as the male bear whose distant bones lay
cracked, scattered, and bleaching in the autumn sun
... as dead as the left paw that dangled uselessly
at the end of her left forelimb. The ruined paw had
prevented her from hunting all but the slowest and most
dim-witted meat and had set her to raiding the cache
pits of Man. She was lean now, as were the two
cubs that trudged wearily behind her.
The great bear lost her footing, and close to eight
hundred pounds of bone, muscle, blood, fat, and
scarred, time-yellowed hide went sliding down the
side of the ridge. The cubs bawled as they suddenly
found themselves rolling head over bottom amid the dust
of the rockslide that their mother had spawned.
The fall ended where the ascent of the ridge had
begun-at its base. The huge bear came up
angry, irritable, and shaking dust and stones from the
fur of her massive shoulders. This was not the first time
that she had lost her footing and slipped since she had
begun her walk upward across the talus-scabbed skin
of the hills. Irritability was nothing new
to her, nor was anger. They came with the pain that lived
in her paw. No amount of licking or gnawing had
been able to make the pain anything but worse. Now, as
the cubs saw her blunt snout
twitch and her vast, sloppy lips draw back
to reveal enormous plaque-thick teeth, they
scampered out of her way. Each remembered that there
had been three of them once; their mother had cut their
number to two when, in a blind rage against the pain in
her paw, she had chewed the offending member to bone and
gristle and then, without warning, had suddenly extended
her great jaws to render the skull of her littlest
offspring into the same.
Now, from a safe distance, the cubs stared at her as
she raised her mass to its extreme. Standing eleven
feet tall on her hind limbs, she shook her
head and turned into the wind to drink it in. She
slobbered with frustration and hunger at the scent of that which
lay far below within the grassland: the scent of meat! The
scent of Man. Of Man on the hunt. They for her
. . . she for them.
But the hunters that had driven her and her cubs into the
hills were on the southern side of the ridge. It was not
their smell that rode foremost on the wind. The great,
growling bear now began to follow the smell
of the small, naked form that ran sweating with terror
across the western grassland.

Naya ran on, clasping a tiny hand across her mouth
lest her laughter reveal her knowledge that she was being watched
and followed by ... Umak!
And
Manaravak!
As long as the twin sons of the headman were near, no
harm could come to her.
Why did they follow? For how long had they been
watching her? Had they seen her dance naked beneath the
sun? Had the sight of her childlike little body
been so amusing that the sound she had heard was not a
sneeze but an attempt to stifle their own laughter?
Without warning, the thong ties to Naya's right boot
came loose, tripped her, and sent her sprawling.
She lay still, unhurt, and cast a glance back over
her shoulder. Yes. The twins were still within the grass
now, with the dog between them. The corners of Naya's
lips turned upward with satisfaction
because Demmi was not with them. The twins' older sister was
too big and too bold for a proper female. No
doubt she was off tracking the bear with the other hunters.
Summer Moon, the headman's eldest
daughter, showed none of these faults, and neither did
Swan, the youngest of the threesome. Demmi was
Manaravak's constant shadow, and Naya half
hoped that the young woman would run afoul of the great bear
and never return to the P.
Manaravak!
His name formed upon Naya's tongue, as complex and
beautiful as the man to whom it belonged-a man who would
be her man someday, when and if she ever grew up!
With the berry necklace held between her teeth, she
sat up, tied her moccasin thongs, and ran on
toward the lake. She could see Grek and the others and
hear their laughter. How cool the water looked!
Naya hurried on, wondering if the brothers were still
following her.
She stopped, turned, and planted her little feet
wide. Yielding to laughter, she put her hands upon
her hips, thrust her minuscule breasts forward, and
worked her hips as though movement might cool the
sudden, unfamiliar, and deliciously pleasant
warmth that was throbbing within her loins.
"Naya!"
Pure anger heated old Grek's tone as he
roared out at her.
Turning, she frowned. So her grandfather had
seen her at last! It was about time! On either side of
him, nine-year-old Tankh, and eight-year-old
Chuk, the bear-bodied boys whom he had sired through
his much younger woman, lana, clutched their boy-sized
spears and looked up at him, amazed by the strength and
resonance of his roar.
"Naya, how long have you been alone? Where are your
clothes and your gathering basket, Little Girl?
Answer!"
Below the crest of the ridge, the hunters paused as their
headman dropped to one knee and laid his hand upon the
earth.
There it was again-the sign of the bear, and of something else.
He watched, listened, and waited, but no matter how
hard he tried to define the warning within his brain, it
refused to reveal itself.
"Torka? What is it?"
He raised a hand to silence the hunter Simu. A
moment passed. Whatever had raised the hackles on
his neck was gone. And now a real and immediate danger
threatened them all: the great, plundering bear. All day
he and the others had
been searching for it. He rose and walked across the
ridge until he knelt again, and with his left hand upon
the earth and his right hand curled around the hafts
of his spears, he saw that bear sign was fresh. The
newly scattered scree revealed a massive
imprint that lay bared to the sun, unmarred by the
crossing of insect tracks or by the settling of
dust. Beneath that massive print lay another-a much
smaller, human, imprint that turned him cold with
dread.
At his back, his daughter Demmi stood beside
Simu and his sons, Dak and young Nantu. Silent
and motionless in the wind, the foursome awaited his word.
It came: "Here the great one slipped, fought for
footing, and fell. She slid and then rose again,
followed by her cubs, into the country of much grass."
"But that is where Grek has led the women and children!"
Nantu's exclamation was as full of fear as it was
loud.
"Silence!" Simu's reprimand withered his
eleven-year-old son.
"I'm sorry," the boy said. "I did not mean
to speak."
Simu, not a man well-known for patience, gave his
younger son a hard shove to the shoulder. "Do you think that
the headman of the People needs a boy to remind him of the
whereabouts of the women and children of his band?"
Demmi came forward to kneel beside Torka.
"Is there sign of Manaravak?" Her voice was
tight with stress.
Torka looked into Demmi's worry-shaded dark
eyes. He saw much of his beloved woman,
Lonit, in the face of his daughter: the wide brow;
the narrow, high-bridged nose; the round, deeply
lidded eyes that were so like those of an antelope. These
features Lonit had shared with all three of her
girls, as well as with Umak, the firstborn of her
twins. Of Torka's children, only Manaravak and
Sayanah, seven winters old and the son last born
to Lonit, resembled the headman. Their fourth
daughter had lived just long enough to be named, but Torka
had looked upon her face and known that if the forces of
Creation allowed her to be born into the world again, she
would carry the look of her mother. A cold, fleeting
mist of mourning chilled him.
Demmi leaned closer and put a strong,
sun-browned hand over his own. "Father, is there sign
of Manaravak?"
The mists within Torka's mind cleared. He nodded
but could barely find the heart to speak as he looked
into her distraught face. Demmi, even more than
Lonit, had taught
Manaravak to speak, live, and think as a
human being when he had first returned to his people from the
wild. From the moment that she had set eyes upon her
long-lost younger brother, the girl had been fiercely
protective and possessive of his affection. It was
not unusual for them to know each other's thoughts, as though
their ability to communicate transcended the bonds of
flesh, as though their blood was one blood, and their
spirits, one spirit.
"Father, please, have you found any sign that he has
come this way? One moment he was behind me; the next he
was gone. It is not like Manaravak to leave my side
without-was
"Your side?" Dak's query was pincer sharp. "He
left us
all,
woman! Forgive me, Torka, but if we had
needed Manaravak, where would he have been, eh? And
you, Demmi, what is the matter with you? Soon
Manaravak will take a woman of his own! It is
about time that you stopped mothering him."
She glared at Dak coldly. "I am of the P.
Manaravak is my brother. Ours is a bond of
blood and heart and spirit. You . . . what are you
to me? I sit at your fire only because this is a
small band that needs children to assure its
future, and it seems that a woman cannot make them
by herself!"
"Demmi!" Torka sent her shrinking back like a
scolded child. "Enough! This is no time for you and Dak
to set to your endless bickering." Beneath his headband of
lion skin, Torka's brow furrowed as he
appraised the young hunter. Dak was as solidly
put together as a well-made sledge and, like Simu,
his father, every bit as useful to the band. He was an
exemplary hunter and had proved to be a caring father
to Kharn, the little son Demmi had born to him three
long autumns before.
But although Dak was strong of arm and fleet of foot,
steady of hand and disposition, at twenty he was two
summers younger than Demmi and only a single
summer older than the twins. Unfortunately, as
far as Torka was concerned, Simu's elder son had
yet to exhibit any imagination and was overly
possessive and resentful of his woman's affection
and concern for her brother.
"Come, Dak," Torka invited. "Kneel beside me
and Demmi. Use your eyes
and
your head, man. Do you see it? The track of the man
is overlaid by the imprint of the bear. Your
woman has just cause for concern on Manaravak's
behalf."
J
Dak glowered down at the ground, leaned low, then
nodded solemnly. "The
bear follows
Manaravak!"
"Yes," confirmed Torka. "And Manaravak
follows Umak, who follows Grek, the women, and
children."
"And now we will follow them all!" blurted
Nantu.
"Nantu is right," said Torka, rising and loping
forward into the wind without looking back. "Come.
Hurry! We have no time to lose!"
Naya hit the lake at a run, sloshing into the
reeds, laughing as she dove past lana, Lonit,
and Eneela. Larani and Swan called out her name,
but she ignored them. She bottomed out in less than
two feet of water and came up spitting mud
to sit waist-deep in the reeds with her legs stretched
before her. She splashed handfuls of water happily
into her face.
It was a moment before she realized that everyone- including
the dogs-was staring at her.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Have you never seen
a girl sitting in a lake before?"
"Not with her moccasins on!" lana said angrily.
"Where have you
been,
girl? And where are your clothes and your basket?"
Naya ignored her grandfather's woman. The
lightheaded bliss that she had experienced earlier was
with her again. She looked at her feet, protruding
from the water, and was surprised to find that lana was right.
She
was
still wearing her moccasins! She wiggled her toes.
They looked silly to her.
Squirrel Killer came bounding across the shallows,
leading the dog pack to pounce upon her. Pummeled
by paws and tongues, Naya hooted in delighted
protest and wrapped her arms tightly around
Squirrel Killer's sodden neck lest he
knock her flat. The other dogs closed ranks,
and one of the pups, tail up and throat full of
growls, nipped at the tip of one of Naya's
moccasins.
"Get away!" Summer Moon shouted at the
dogs, kicking
water toward the animals while little Kharn, her
sister Demmi's son, rode high upon her bare
hip. The three-year-old boy hefted a pudgy
arm to point an equally pudgy finger at Naya.
"N'ya!" he gleefully shouted. "N'ya
funny!"
Everyone except lana seemed to agree. "Perhaps
if Naya had sewn her own moccasins, she would not
find her carelessness so amusing. It took this woman
many days to prepare the hides and stitch them
into boots. It is not enough for Naya to slosh around in the
water and mud while wearing them. Now she feeds them
to the dogs."
"They are not my only pair," Naya pointed out from
somewhere within the mass of licking, yapping dogs.
"Yes," snapped lana. "And I have made them
all!"
lana was the eldest woman in the band, with over forty
summers of life. She was still a handsome woman. Men
had fought and bartered for her in her youth, and more than one
of these had loved her. Old Grek still did,
despite her ever-widening midriff and the many long,
thick-shafted strands of gray in her hair. Seven
infants had drawn the milk of life from lana's
well-worn breasts. Three of these, all
by Grek, still lived. Her two boys-Tankh and
Chuk, at nine and eight, were so close in age,
appearance, and disposition that they might have sprung from
her womb at the same time. Her six-year-old
Yona, a strong little girl, was neither too pretty
nor too plain but somewhere pleasantly in between. She
seemed oblivious to Grek's preferential
treatment of Naya, the granddaughter who shared the
fire circle of his little family as though she had
been born to rule over it.
If Naya had only looked more like the handsome but
forbidding shaman Karana, her dead father, Grek
might have raised her differently. But she looked like
her mother, Mahnie, and thus reminded Grek of the
only child that he had ever had with Wallah, his first
woman and first love. To Grek, the spirit of his beloved
dead wife lived on in Naya, and so he favored
and indulged the girl, pampered her as though she could do
no wrong.
lana found herself nodding against the weight of troubling
memories. The girl was not perfect. Huggable,
sometimes kind, and occasionally solicitous of others,
she was more often willful, selfish, and impetuous.
lana worried that one of these days, Naya would
unthinkingly bring serious trouble to herself or to the
band.
Grek's woman could find nothing amusing in
Naya's
behavior, nor could she feel anything but annoyance
with the others for encouraging her recalcitrant
silliness. Even Lonit, woman of the headman, was
smiling at Naya's humorous predicament with the
dogs.
Lonit rose from the water-tall and lean and a
pleasure to the eyes even though she was the mother of six
and well over thirty summers in age. "Ho,
dogs! Ho and back!" she cried, unwinding her
bola from her brow.
"Out of the way!" cried Honee, Umak's woman,
reaching protectively for her children. A pair of
panicked pups went racing between Honee's
flesh-pebbled legs, knocking her off balance and
sending her backward to land in a spread-eagled
splat. Water whooshed up as Honee went down;
the sound was explosive. For a moment the fat woman
sat stunned.
Making no attempt to stifle their laughter at
Honee's expense, sag-breasted Eneela, and
Larani, her bounteously bosomed young daughter,
sloshed to her rescue and drew her limp and
sputtering from the water as the children continued to shout and
splash at the fleeing dogs.
"Do you see what your spoiling has accomplished!"
cried lana at Grek. She glared at her man.
The women and children were startled into silence by her
disrespectful outburst.
lana clearly did not care. "Has there ever been a
more thoughtless girl? Lagging behind like that, and then running
after us! Who knows what predators might have followed
her?"
"Wolves followed me," Naya said, a
mischievous twinkle in her eyes. Her pointed little
chin jabbed skyward defiantly. "Yes, wolves.
Two of them-big, young, and bold. And a dog. I
saw them clearly in the grass." The girl looked
away from her grandfather and spoke to the dog-or was it to the
old man? "What sort of woman watcher are you?
You must be more alert, or the People will think that you are going
blind and deaf with age, and of what use to the band is an
old, deaf, sightless dog?"
"Naya!" Lonit's tone was an unmistakable
rebuke.
Naya seemed genuinely puzzled by it.
"Wolves, you say?" Grek looked worried and
vaguely disoriented. His great head was
cocked, and the long, graying strands of his time-brittled
hair whipped around the crags and promontories of a
face that was as grooved and roughened by time as the
frontal lobes of a glacier.
Somewhere far off within the deep grass to the east of the
lake, one of the dogs yipped once. In that single
cry had been surprise and fright, terror and pain.
Everyone in the lake tensed as Squirrel Killer
rose to all fours and, without bothering to shake himself,
stood beside Naya with his tail tucked. He growled
low as the wind turned and blew briefly from the
east-and in that moment, the smell of blood caused them
all to know that death was near.
"Did you hear it?" Umak's voice was the merest
exhalation of a whisper as he stared through the grass
toward the lake.
"I heard," Manaravak affirmed darkly. He
would have risen, but his brother's hand stayed his movement
as surely as Umak's other hand kept Companion
from racing off into the grassland.
"Wait," whispered Umak to both dog and brother.
"The cry of the pup placed it well to the east and
well behind us."
"Yes. Little dog runs into big bear."
"How can you be certain?"
"It is bear, Umak. The dying dog spoke its
name. You should know these things, Shaman. It may be the
bear that the others seek."
"You cannot be sure of that."
"No." A dark brow rose toward Manaravak's
hairline. "For that knowledge I must be closer . . . must
see better." Again he started to rise.
Again Umak stayed his movement. "Not yet. If
old Grek sees us-was
"He will be assured that he does not have to stand alone
against an attacking bear."
"From the sound of it, the bear-if it is a bear-has
killed the pup. It might not move toward the lake.
Perhaps even now it eats and is content."
"But perhaps not. Listen now, Shaman: Deep in the
grass, the other dogs are circling wide, seeking
that which made one of their pack cry out. The bear will have
smelled them by now. Only a stupid beast would not
abandon what may be left of its little feast in order
to avoid the dogs."
"Stay low, Manaravak. All we need do is
get a little closer to the lake, within better spear
range just in case whatever is there should come forward, and
if Grek cannot drive it off, we can-was
"Kill it." A smile moved upon
Manaravak's mouth.
"Maybe yes . . . maybe no. Have you not heard
our father say that to kill the great one that walks on
three paws will take the combined effort of all the
hunters of the band?"
"Is Umak afraid?"
The question stung. "Is Manaravak
not
afraid?"
"Fear can be sweet. Fear can heat the blood and
make the hearing sharp and brighten and extend the sight."
"When you have a woman and two little ones of your own,
Brother . . . when you know that your spear arm may
well be all that stands between them and starvation in the depth
of the winter dark, then you and I will talk about the meaning
of fear."
Manaravak looked hurt. "All the women and children
of the band are my women, my children, my people."
"It is not the same."
Manaravak's expression revealed that he did not
understand. He had taken no woman of his own.
It was, Umak conceded, to Manaravak's credit that
he had offered to wait until Naya, chosen for him
by consensus of the council of elders, came to her time of
blood; in the meantime, he made it clear that
he was used to sleeping alone and, because he preferred his
meat raw, had no need of a woman to tend his cooking
fire. When need of a man's release came upon
Manaravak, in the way of the band since time beyond
beginning, an older woman would be sent to ease him.
The wind turned, as did Umak's thoughts. For a
moment the air was unnaturally still, then the wind gusted
hard from the north. Beside Umak, Companion trembled
against his restraining hand.
Manaravak raised his head to scent the wind in the
manner of a wolf. "Listen. The dogs come closer
now. The bear hears them. It walks on three
paws, and the little bears that follow are still hungry."
Manaravak's handsome face expanded into a smile that
made him look purely carnivorous. "We go
now! We show the dog eaters what it means to come up
against the sons of Torka!"
"No, Manaravak!" Umak was emphatic as his
hand pushed his brother's forearm down and held it fast
to the earth. "It would kill Grek to know that he is no
longer trusted. We will move closer but not show ourselves
unless the bear moves toward the lake. The women and
children are safe for now."
"And Naya, too."
"Yes, and Naya." Umak was suddenly
dry-mouthed and breathless. Had the wind turned cold?
No. It was only his heart and its desperate
desire for Naya.
Naya had ducked under the water lest she burst out
laughing at the look on her grandfather's face. Her
hands rose to tent her mouth and nose, and laughter
bubbled through her fingers, tickling her palms and her
mood until she was choking and gasping. She rose
to her feet, surprised to find that Squirrel
Killer had run off and that she was no longer the
object of everyone's attention.
Why were they all so suddenly serious? The boys had
taken up the short stabbing spears that they had carried
out from camp. They stood boldly, yet she could see
the unnatural pallor of their faces. The little
girls clustered around Summer Moon, Honee, and
Eneela. Lonit, clutching her bola, sloshed out
of the water and clambered onto the embankment, where she
reached for her wolverine bag.
"What are you doing?" Grek demanded.
The headman's woman did not look up. She
emptied the bag's stones and shells into her palm and
rapidly began to arm her bola. "You hold your
spears ready. I will do the same with my bola."
Wide-eyed, Naya looked at Lonit.
She was ready to stand against an attack, but from what?
She started to ask, but lana hushed her with a hiss.
Naya frowned, annoyed with lana. The woman had
been far too critical of her this day. The girl was
about to speak out anyway, to inform everyone that two armed
spearmen hid within the grass ready to stand with Grek
to their defense. But Lonit raised a warning hand and
fixed Naya with narrowed black eyes that were so hot
and sharp that the girl actually felt burned by them.
"But-was
"Silence, Naya!"
"For once do as you are told, Naya!"
The echoing admonitions came from an unexpected
source-from Swan and Larani, her best friends!
Naya stared at them with surprise and hurt. But as
she looked at them, standing together, stark-naked and
dripping wet, she swallowed hard against a bitter
truth: Swan and Larani were on the brink of
womanhood while she herself remained a child. Her
light, dizzying euphoria was gone. Her
hand moved to what was left of her necklace, but she
was disappointed to discover that her submersion had rendered
it a thong without berries.
The wind was turning all around now, and again in the wind
was the smell of blood. Naya's eyes
widened, and she felt sick with understanding.
lana was staring at her. "Yes," she grated.
"Something out there has killed the pup and may now
well be stalking us. The other dogs have taken off after
it. Whatever the predator is, your scent has
drawn it here. It has followed you, and whatever
happens next will be your fault!"
Torka led Simu, Dak, Nantu, and Demmi
down from the hills.
"Umak watches the woman watcher," Simu
reminded, attempting to ease the strained look from
Torka's face as he jogged beside him. "If
Manaravak has joined him, what bear would not turn
away at the sight of those two standing against it, eh?
Perhaps we worry too much. The bear kind does not
often come against the People when it can avoid it."
"True, but this sow has been clever enough to elude our
snares and raid our cache pits. I have the feeling
that this bear is a grave danger to us all."
The hunters went on and on. At last they came
to the place where the tracks of man and bear crossed
those of the women and children.
"The bear
is
following," said Simu, reading the prints.
Torka nodded his agreement.
"They seem to be headed for the lake," said Dak.
Again Torka nodded. The lake of which Dak spoke
lay beyond a rise.
"Old Grek has led them far from the encampment,"
said Simu, his face a mask of ill-concealed
worry.
"Too far," Dak's voice snapped with
resentment. "Grek takes too much upon himself these
days, and now because of Torka's compassion he risks
the women and children."
Torka's head went high as he met the younger
man's challenge calmly and without anger. "I have
lived long enough to know that nothing in this life is
completely predictable, Dak-not men, not beasts, not
wind, not weather, not even the ways of the forces of
Creation themselves. Now let's go."
Torka moved on without looking back. Although the
others followed without hesitation, terrible uncertainty
pummeled his gut. Was Dak right? Had his compassion
for Grek clouded his judgment?
No!
Umak was strong, bold, and wise for his years. If
Grek proved unable to stand against predators, Umak
would know what to do. And Torka was also certain
that Manaravak had joined his brother. Manaravak was
as swift and as strong as a running lion. He used
a spear with a skill that nearly equaled Umak's,
and even though he had never mastered the use of the spear
thrower, his years among beasts had taught him things
about hunting to which only animals were privy.
Bending his head into the wind, Torka willed himself
to breathe more slowly. The pounding rhythm of his heart
relaxed. His breath came as effortlessly as his
ability to rationalize. His jaw tightened, compressing
the long, straight rows of his strong, even teeth
until he felt the smoothness of them-the slickness
of the grinding edges that revealed forty-seven winters of
wear.
Coldness touched him. Man, like any other animal,
lived only as long as his teeth. And if Torka was
growing old, what then should be said of Grek, who was so
much older?
He led them forward with infinite caution; just as the
deepest, most treacherous depths of a river are to be
found in the fast-flowing channels that run farthest from
shore, so it was with the broad, rolling terrain, where the
grasses grew so thick and tall in shadowed troughs
that they could easily conceal even the largest of
carnivores. They walked with their spears at
the ready, just in case something big and hungry should
leap at them from out of the walls of grass through which they
passed.
Naya's discarded dress and basket lay ahead.
Torka gestured the others forward. No one spoke.
It seemed that no one even breathed. They stared
wide-eyed at these well-known things, as though they were
looking at the remains of a corpse.
"There is no blood!" Demmi said hopefully and,
after a
consenting nod from Torka, went forward to pick up the
basket and dress. "Nothing is torn!" She
smelled the dress. "The bear has been here-I can
smell its spittle. It is feverish, this bear, and
where its flesh has touched the garment there is a stink
of a wound gone bad. But from the tracks, Naya was
long gone by then, and running from the look of them. But it
would seem that the twins were following her more closely
than was the bear."
A sigh of relief was exhaled from every mouth, and
Torka nodded in approval of his daughter's
skill; he had taught her well, and although in years
past there had been criticism of his willingness
to instruct a female in the skills of the hunt, he
had no regrets. His woman and daughters
could track and take game. In times of need, they were
an asset to their men.
The wind resumed its hard thrust from the west.
Torka stood against it in his garments of lion and
wolfskins. Once again his mouth went so dry that the
back of his throat and nostrils felt singed by an
ill-made fire. He wished that the wind would hold
steady long enough to allow him to grasp its warning.
Torka shook his head as impatience swept through
him. A man could scent the wind and know what it was about
or he could not! Never had he doubted his abilities
as a tracker. He hissed in self-deprecation,
telling himself that this was no time to doubt himself. The wind
would speak to him in its own good time.
Surrounded by leaping, snarling, harrying dogs, the great
bear rose to her hind legs while her cubs cowered
close to her flanks, seeking protection. It did
them no good. The dogs were on them now, charging in
to bite and tear and then back off, only to charge in
again, careless of their safety in the frenzy of their
attack.
Towering eleven feet tall above the grasses, the
great bear extended her forelimbs as she shook her
head and lifted her slobbering lips to show her
massive teeth to the dogs.
The taste of the flesh and bone and blood of one of their
kind still lingered in her mouth, and remnants of the
animal lay beneath her feet. Enraged by the bawling of
her confused and terrified cubs, she used her one good
forepaw to swipe down and out.
All the power of her back and shoulder was in that swing.
She felt her claws rake flesh. Two dogs that
each weighed as much as a woman were lifted and spun
away as though they were no more than blackflies.
Blood and guts were in the air.
The bear threw back her head and shook it as she
roared at the yapping dogs, which backed off and
circled wide. Only one of her tormentors ran
off in bloodied flight, tripping over its own
intestines, its once-gray body red now and laid
open all along its right side. The other dogs
stayed.
A big, grizzle-coated male kept them
circling, feinting in and then back, and snarling. The
bear dropped to all fours and roared in sudden rage
as pain flared within her ruined paw. She charged
away.
The dogs broke and scattered, staying maddeningly just
out of range as they circled back upon her. She
wheeled and charged again. The dogs broke and
scattered again and, working in a pack, harried her,
provoked her into blind, raging fury. Two more dogs
died in a spray of blood and hair. Her cubs were
gone. She could hear them tearing off through the grass.
She stood again-a living mountain of flesh and hide and
power that towered over the dogs, which circled her and
refused to break off their attack, no matter how
she menaced them.
Deep within her brain, bear logic was working to confuse
her. These dogs were not behaving like dogs at all!
Why had they not taken off after her vulnerable cubs?
Why did they stay even after she had killed several
of them?
"Hold! Easy now!"
Umak's commands went unheeded as every hair upon the
spinal ridge of Companion's back went straight
up. The hunter tried to soothe the dog and might have
succeeded if Squirrel Killer's yelp of
anguish had not rent the air. Umak felt
Companion stiffen within the fold of his arm. He tried
to hold the dog, but Companion was close in size
to a wolf and was just as strong. The dog's head
snapped back, and his teeth threatened. Umak
released his grip. Companion was off
through the grasses in defense of his own kind
at a snarling, slathering bound.
Umak did not mean to leap to his feet; he and
Manaravak were still between the bear and the lake, in a good
position to drive the bear off if the dogs did not do
so first. He could hear his mother and Crek calling for the
dogs to return to the lake, but it was in their blood
to stay, to place themselves between danger and the P.
Umak's need to stop Companion from rushing to its death
was a purely reflexive action. The pup had been
with him since its birth. So now Umak was on his
feet, up and running, brandishing his spears. And
Grek had seen him.
Manaravak rose, and howling and yapping like the most
aggressive of the dogs, he raced toward die fray
to save the life of his brother.
Naya screamed. "Somebody stop the bear! It is
killing the dogs!"
Little Girl's cry, more than the sight of the twins
bounding toward the bear, visibly shamed old Grek.
Honee, beside Naya in the shallows, wheeled and
knocked the girl down. "Dogs! Is that all that
concerns you? Manaravak and my Umak are in
danger, and you scream about the dogs?"
"Manaravak . . ."
It was not Naya who moaned his name; it was
Larani, daughter of Simu and Eneela. She
exhaled it with such longing and fear for him that Lonit,
amazed, turned to stare at the girl.
Larani's fine, curvaceous young body glistened in
the sun as one graceful hand rested over her heart
and the other pressed her lips as though to keep herself from
making another sound.
She cares deeply for him,
thought Lonit.
And he is for Naya . . . who is more concerned for the
dogs!
Anger at Little Girl pricked Lonit's heart,
but she knew full well that this was no time for such
thoughts. The headman's woman turned back toward
the open steppe. If Manaravak was hot on
Umak's heels, it was because Umak was desperately
attempting to catch up with Companion. The dog was more
than halfway to the bear, however, and the distance between him
and the twins was widening. Nevertheless, Umak kept after
the dog, shouting its name.
Lonit gasped with relief as Manaravak tackled
Umak and pulled him down by his ankles. After a
moment of ferocious wrestling, Umak was up and off
again. Lonit was aghast. Manaravak's advantage
of height and weight had always rendered Umak
the loser.
But now, as she watched, Manaravak sat stunned;
then he was on his feet and following Umak at a
run. But Lonit had never seen Umak run
faster-his love for the dog drove him.
Her heart seemed to be beating in her throat.
Where is Torka?
she wondered.
Where are Simu and Dak and my brave Demmi?
A terrible, sinking feeling of helplessness tightened in
her belly. Her own spears lay back in camp.
Although the women had brought their bolas, none had any
real weapons with them. If the bear broke from the
grasses and came toward the lake, they were all in
danger. Anger overwhelmed her fear. Blame for this
situation belonged with one small, thoughtless girl who
had deliberately lagged behind her people.
Arming her bola, and commanding those who had bolas of their
own to do the same, Lonit drew in a deep,
steadying breath. The twins were running wide of one
another now, hooting and shouting in raging bravado,
shaking their spears as they circled the bear, signaling
and yelling out their strategy in a plan to bluff the
bear into fear of them as they tried to drive it away
... or make a fatal wounding.
Lonit's chest ached with a mother's fear and pride.
"Does my mother believe that my brothers will be able
to do what the dogs have not?"
Swan had come to stand tremulously beside Lonit, with
her own bola armed and ready.
"We must all ask the forces of Creation to grant
them that gift!" replied Lonit, wanting to sound
strong and unwavering, but her voice had cracked.
She stood a little taller. For the sake of all,
especially for the little ones, she must set a brave
example.
Lonit realized that the wind was blowing steadily out of the
north, and it was no longer sweet with the scent of
grass. It seemed warmer and acrid with a subtle,
dusky smell that made her think of cooking stones and
fire pits and roasted meat.
A terrible sound suddenly issued from Grek. She
had all but forgotten he was there.
"Stop!" Beneath his shaggy robe, the old man's
massive shoulders trembled as a tortured growl of
frustration came out of him. "You will all stay here in
this safe place! Grek is woman watcher!
Grek will tell the others what to do!"
Without another word, he burst forward with a whoop and a
shriek of such savage determination that little
Kharn, still astride the sleek hip of Summer
Moon, burst into tears.
Grek did not look back. Brandishing his spears and
shouting at the top of his lungs, he warned the great
bear to run away before it was too late.
Lonit found herself instinctively lunging forward,
grabbing at his furred, shaggy arm and half dragging
him to stop. "Wait! If my sons fail to drive
the bear away, we will need you here to protect us,
Grek!" She stopped, brought up short by the look
on the old man's face.
"Is that right?" he asked bitterly. "Bah! Do you
think this man is stupid? Umak and Manaravak are
the wolves that my Naya saw! You and your man and
all of the others think that old Grek is not wolf enough
to be woman watcher!"
Lonit was struck to her heart by the anguish that she
saw in his eyes. "No ..." She hesitated. It
was not in her nature to lie. "You do not understand,
Grek. You must-was
"Must
what?
Ah, yes, Grek understands. And because he understands,
Grek must show you what this old man can do! This man
is
still a man!"
"Grek! Please!" lana, stumbling across the
shallows, reached out toward her man. "Think of
Naya and the children!" She stopped, silenced by the withering
look that he gave her.
"Have I ever done anything but think of Naya and my
children and my band? And of you, lana. Yes. It is a
man's pride to think of his women and children. And so I
tell you to stand back! Grek will not be shamed-not by you,
not by the woman of Torka, not by the son* of
Torka. And most assuredly not by himself!"
Old Grek ran out across the golden land. Umak and
Manaravak stopped and stared in amazement as the old
man waved them away and told them that the kill was
his.
Meanwhile, Lonit put the children at her back and
gathered the women and older girls into a protective
half circle around them. The headman's woman
saw to it that each
woman armed her bola and was ready to sling a hail of
stones at the great bear if all else failed.
At that very moment Torka and the others appeared on the
crest of the rise-too far away to do anything but stand and
stare as Grek stood to his full height and raised
his arms wide.
Only the wind moved, beating at the old man's
back, as the bear stood and cocked its head and tried
to decide what manner of mad beast had dared to come
before it.
In that moment Grek charged the bear. With his head
lowered and his spears extended outward from his armpits,
his broad limbs pounded through the grasses. His
voice was raised in a ululating bellow that seemed
to have the strength of a rolling thunderbolt.
With the old man roaring directly toward it, the bear
stood taller and made ready to swipe downward with
its one good forepaw. Suddenly, spears flew from the
hands of Umak and Manaravak, The bear whirled
around just as two spears glanced off the fur and hide
of its shoulder. The beast's movement allowed Grek
to get in close enough to place what might well have
been a killing blow. But the bear suddenly dropped
to all fours and charged after the two young hunters with
Grek's two spears protruding from her rump.
Manaravak and Umak ran deep into the cover of the
grass, with the smell of death hot in their nostrils.
A quick look over their shoulder showed it was the end of
one of them. They both knew it. There was no time for
words. Without breaking stride, they touched hands
briefly, then broke off in different
directions, each hoping to draw the great bear away
from the other.
Umak pounded away, the grasses lashing his face.
Suddenly he fell, tripped by his own terror.
He sprawled flat on his belly, splayed wide
like a skin stretched by the women for fleshing.
He could hear the bear crashing after him, with the dogs
barking and slavering and growling after it.
"Father Above, Mother Below, make it a quick ending!" His
prayer to the forces of Creation was a half-choked
sob.
Soon he would be torn apart, gutted, chewed. The
image was more than he could stand. Somewhere deep within
him, terror burst wide open and bled into a red,
blinding rage.
"No! Not that easily!" He gnashed the words as he
realized that he still had one of his spears. With it
gripped in his right fist, he rolled violently into a
crouch and faced his death head-on.
It came. It passed. The bear literally ran over
him and kept on going, the head of Umak's spear
broken off in its shoulder and the dogs still in hot
pursuit.
Stunned and battered, the young hunter found himself flat
on his back with the air knocked out of him and more
bruises than he wished to think about. But he was
alive.
Alive!
He stared up at the sky and laughed aloud. "Thank
you!" he said to Father Above, Mother Below, and to all of the
forces of Creation that had allowed him this moment.
He closed his eyes. Life was sweet. Yes!
Moments passed. He heard his mother and Honee
calling his name. He would answer in a moment. Now
he was too weak with relief. It was good to lie still and
feel the wind flowing over him as cool shadows
drifted across the face of the sun.
He opened his eyes, frowning. Strange: The wind
actually felt hot. He noted that the blue skin of
Father Above was gray and that the yellow eye of the sun was
obscured by high clouds that smelled of smoke.
Once again terror burst to life within him. He
heard his father's voice calling from the rise and speaking
the one word that no man wished to hear when he was far out
upon the dry summer grasslands and a great distance from the
encampment.
"Fire!"
PART II
DAUGHTER OF THE SKY
It was Father Above who made the fire, in
anger, with the stinging tip of his silver spear of
lightning. As Naya sat alone on the embankment
apart from the others who were gathered on the opposite
shore, she knew in her heart that Father Above had
set the fire because he was angry with her. It was all
her fault-the coming of the great bear, the dead and wounded
dogs, and now the distant but ever-advancing
wildfire! If only she had not fallen behind the
others! And it had been a very bad thing for her to have
wished death to Demmi, the headman's daughter.
Yet now, she almost wished it again as she looked up
and saw Demmi sloshing across the lake toward her.
Only a few moments before, Torka had led
Demmi, Dak, Simu, and Nantu to join the
others at the lake. It had been a somber
reunion. Manaravak and Umak had met them
halfway across the plain, and somewhere on their way to the
lakeshore they had taken the time to search out and, with their
spears, put a merciful end to the mortally wounded
dogs. The other dogs had kept on in pursuit
of the great bear. Maybe they would return to the P.
Maybe they would not.
Stern-eyed and reproving, Demmi stopped before her.
"I found your dress and your basket. Here, take
them."
Naya stared up at the second daughter of
Torka. Demmi towered over her, making her feel
small. The repudiation in the woman's eyes and in
her deep, husky voice gave Naya a
headache. She looked for sympathy on Demmi's
face but could find none.
As she looked past the headman's daughter she saw
that Manaravak was coming toward them. With Umak at his
side, Manaravak was smiling broadly at her
... or was he smiling at Demmi?
"Manaravak ..." she whispered.
Demmi turned, saw her brothers, then turned
back and shoved the basket and dress into Naya's
hands. "Get dressed,
Little Girl! There is much to do before the fire reaches
our encampment. I can't even begin to imagine what
possessed old Grek to lead you all so far from
home!"
"Grek is strong and brave!"
"Grek is old! His judgment has failed him."
Manaravak and Umak had come to stand in front of
Naya. Both were eyeing her with wide grins.
Embarrassed, she snatched her belongings from Demmi
and held them against her body. And to think that she had
found pleasure in having their eyes upon her!
Now she felt unworthy of their appraisal. Oh,
how she wished that her head would stop aching!
"Do not be so hard on Little Girl," Manaravak
admonished Demmi. Like Umak, his eyes were on
Naya, and his expression was of unconcealed sexual
speculation.
Naya lowered her eyes. Manaravak's gaze
caused her scalp to tingle and her face to flame
bright red. She could not look at him or at Umak.
With a contemptuous sneer, Demmi stepped forward
to put herself between Naya and her brothers. "Both of
you, leave Little Girl to dress. Let us get
back to the others."
"You go back to them. This man and Umak must go on
now!" Manaravak informed her ominously.
"Where? Why?" Demmi asked.
Umak replied. "Our father has said that the encampment
is too far for the women and children to go, especially
by night. Manaravak and I must return to it before the
fire destroys everything. We will carry what meat and
hides we can across the shallows, if there is time-or
bury them if there is not."
Demmi stood so straight that it seemed to Naya that
her back would snap. "I will go, too!"
"No!" Umak told her emphatically.
"Torka says that all the women and children must stay.
It will be safe here."
"But if it catches up with you before you reach the camp
and the river, you will have no shelter against it." Demmi's
voice was as stiff as her back.
"It will not catch us," Umak assured her. "Soon
the time of the long dark will come, Sister." His voice was
as calming as his eyes. "If the snows come early and the
winter supplies of the People have been eaten by the fire,
how will we live without shelter? How will we find
food to keep us from starving in a land that has been
scoured by flames?"
"Umak is right," said Manaravak. "Fast
runners are the sons of Torka! Together Umak and
Manaravak will save the meat and winter stores and
tent hides, and then together we will run back to sit
with the People in this lake before the fire comes! You will see!
It will be so!"
Demmi, furious, slapped Manaravak hard across
his upper arm. "And to think I feared that the great bear
had eaten you! Hmmph! It would have choked on your
arrogance!"
Manaravak laughed out loud and pulled his sister into a
tight embrace.
Demmi closed her eyes and buried her
face in the long, deep hollow between his powerful neck
and shoulder. "Oh, Manaravak, I was so frightened for
you when you left the hunt without a word to me! Do not go
off again without me. Promise. Please?
Promise?"
Naya's frown deepened. Her headache was a mean,
tight, throbbing knot. Demmi was different when she
was with Manaravak. Her voice had grown so
gentle, her manner so open and vulnerable and
imploring. And Demmi was standing in Manaravak's
embrace as though she were his woman and not his sister!
With a hard, perfunctory kiss to the top of his
sister's head, Manaravak peeled Demmi's
clinging arms from around his neck. "I am no longer a
small, wild boy. I am a man now, all
grown and strong. I will go where I want, when I
want. I do not need a sister at my side
worrying all the time. You have a child. You want
to worry, you go watch over your little boy."
"Good. And well-spoken!"
Naya blinked, startled. She had been so absorbed
in Manaravak that she had not noticed that Dak came
from the far shore to join them. Kharn rode atop his
brawny shoulders. The three-year-old boy giggled
with pleasure as his father swung him down.
Dak, stopping in front of Demmi, looked at his
woman with open hostility as he thrust the child into her
arms.
"This is called a son," Dak told his woman.
"He is hungry for his mother's breast."
"Good! And well-spoken!" Demmi mimicked
Dak. "You keep him, then!" She thrust the
uncomprehending boy back into his father's hands.
Then she stalked off to stand alone in the middle of the
lake, hands on her hips, hair flying back,
eyes slitted and glaring into the wind as she tried
to cool her temper.
Dak cursed under his breath and drew his son closer
as he asked the twins, "What bad spirit eats your
sister's heart?" But before either brother could respond,
he continued, "There's no talking to her these days.
Why does she suddenly hate me? We were so
happy once."
His lament was brought short by Torka's summons.
Naya looked to the opposite shore. The
headman's arms were up, and he was calling his people
to gather around.
"We must go on now," Umak said to Dak.
Dak mumbled a begrudging acquiescence. "Yes,
yes. You two go on. Save our belongings!
There's a long, dark, cold, and hungry winter
ahead! All the omens promise it: a summer without
rain . . . bears raiding the cache pits . . .
herds going lean . . . young girls unable to bleed as
women . . . our great mammoth totem gone from the
land . . . and one miserably small band alone in a
world and no way back into the land from which we've come.
Ah, what's the meaning of it all? Maybe it'd be
best if the fire took us all!"
Umak's face expanded with rage as he took hold
of Dak's arm and pulled him so close that their
noses almost touched. "You want to recross the
Forbidden Land? Do you remember nothing of the horrors
that we have left behind? Go back, then! But go alone,
Dak, because I would not let my sister or her son go
with you. And go
now,
for if you stay among this people and I hear you risk the
wrath of the forces of Creation by speaking such
blasphemous words again, there will not be enough of you left
to walk the wind forever . . . and your life spirit shall
spend eternity trying to find itself amid the refuse of
your bones!"
The words settled like a rockslide, leaving stony
echoes to linger on the wind.
Umak and Dak faced one another eye to eye, like
two stags braced together with antlers locked. In the
increasingly ash-sullied wind, Kharn, squeezed
between them, began to fuss and arch his back, but neither
Umak nor Dak seemed aware of the hapless boy.
Naya was stunned by Umak's outburst. It was not like
Umak and Dak to argue like this; as spear brothers,
they were raised from earliest boyhood to hunt together as
a team. They had made their first kills together and had
endured the rituals that had made them men of the band
together.
"Hey, hey, stop this now!" Manaravak tried
to draw his brother back, but it was no use.
"Take back your words," Umak demanded.
Dak glared with a belligerence that showed no sign of
weakening.
With a snort of anger and impatience, Umak
suddenly gave Dak a shove that sent him reeling
back. The two young men stood staring at one another.
The tension was palpable until Kharn, wet faced and
sobbing now, wrapped his arms about Dak's neck and
cuddled close.
"Da . . dis8the boy whimpered.
Dak closed his eyes. A deep breath went out of
him. "I take back my words," he said.
"You were right to be angry."
"You have no right to forgive him, Umak," Demmi
called out from the center of the lake as a lifetime of
love and affection allowed the men to clasp hands. "The
forces of Creation will have to do that! Why not take the boy
and go, if you feel that you must, Dak? I, for one,
would find little to miss in the absence of either of you!"
"Demmi!" Lonit's voice rang out with shock and
anger from the far shore. Close beside her, Dak's
parents, Simu and Eneela, glared at Demmi with
an animosity that was as hot as the distant grass
fire while their daughter Larani shook her head
sympathetically.
Naya looked toward the headman. For a moment
Torka did not move. He stood very tall and
straight, and for a moment the girl saw so much of
Manaravak in him that she caught her breath at the
pure power and beauty of him. His hair was as thick
and black as a youth's, his belly as flat, his
hips as lean, and his thighs as well muscled.
Torka pointed at Demmi, scalding her with the heat
of his dark eyes. "More and more you distress and shame
me, Daughter. The People are
one backslash
No one mocks the unity that gives strength
to the few and hope to the future! No one!
Especially not a callous and thoughtless woman! But
there is no time for this now! You and Dak and your boy will
come with your people. Together we will prepare to stand against the coming
night of fire while Umak and Manaravak run
ahead of the wind to do what must be done. Go now, you
two! Go swiftly and ask the spirits of the wind
to grant you speed!"
They ran together, side by side, measuring their pace
so that they could maintain it over the long distance that lay
ahead. They did not speak. Yet Umak found himself
wondering if Manaravak thought of Naya as he
ran-deep, hungry thoughts of how it would be with them .
. . someday . . . soon. He swallowed down his
jealousy, acknowledging it for what it was and berating himself
because he knew that he had no right to it. Besides, there were
more important things to think about now.
At the base of the rise, bear and dog sign veered
north. Umak and Manaravak stopped and exchanged
meaningful glances. The bear was leading its cubs and the
dogs
toward
the fire! Umak found it difficult not to tremble as
he tensed against apprehension.
Companion! Where are you, my old friend?
Let the bear go! She does not matter now!
Umak raised his voice in a long, summoning,
doglike wail into the tide of the wind.
He and Manaravak waited, facing into the wind,
squinting into the vicious, onrushing air current from out
of the north. They could taste ash and smoke and smell
evidence of distant heat and scorched stone and
death-yes, the death of grass and shrubs and of burned
hair and hide. . . .
Umak winced against his thoughts. "The dogs have the same
instinct to survive as we," he said strongly, wishing
that he believed it. "May the forces of Creation be with
them now, for we cannot. We must go on. The lives of the
People depend on us."
They went on again, uphill now, pausing briefly
at the top of the rise to look around. Manaravak's
eyes were unnaturally round and wide with the pure,
instinct-driven terror of a wild animal that is on
the brink of panic, for in the broad, lowland passes
between the mountain ranges to the west and north, the fire
was burning high and advancing along the entire curve
of the horizon, forming an ominous smoking squall
line as dark and tall as the clouds that stood over the
peaks.
"So big this fire. All the north country
burns!"
Umak was so preoccupied with the immensity of the fire that
he took no heed of Manaravak's words or tone.
He stared toward his people. He could see the women and children
from here, tiny forms clustering along the shore. Torka
was talking with the men and boys. The women and girls were
gathering reeds. The children were scampering about as though they
had not a care in the world. It suddenly occurred to
Umak that everyone that he loved was there: mother, father,
children, sisters, brother, friends. . . .
"They will be safe in the lake," he said, almost
to himself.
Manaravak's head swung in slow and somber
incredulity. "Will they? It is such a small lake.
Will the shallow waters keep the People safe from such a
fire as
that?"
No!
The word exploded within Umak's mind and almost
escaped unbidden from his lips. As Umak stared at
the advancing conflagration, his eyes narrowed. He was
not at all comfortable with his father's decision to stay at the
lake. But who was he to say that a great headman such
as Torka might be wrong? He drew in a deep,
steadying breath. He was a loyal and loving
son. "Of course they will be safe! Torka would not
risk the lives of the People! The band is everything to him."
"But look at the clouds!" Manaravak pointed
off. "Torka cannot see them from where he stands."
Umak felt suddenly sick and cursed himself as a
fool. The clouds were growing, expanding, boiling, and
climbing angrily into the sky.
He realized that they were the
same
clouds that he had seen earlier in the day. The fire
must have been burning unseen behind the peaks for hours,
adding fuel to the rainless, late-summer squalls that
had been building high over the mountains since well
before noon.
An upwelling of disgust made him scowl against the
bitterness of self-revilement. In his pursuit of
Naya across the grasslands, he had not thought
to analyze the clouds with the alert, well-trained
eyes of a hunter or a shaman . . . but of a
female-bedazzled male, of no use to anyone.
There was death in those clouds. Umak felt it. He
could taste it. He could smell it. He stared ahead
without blinking, enduring a premonition that nearly
struck him down as the Seeing Wind swept through him
without mercy: The fire was too big; the
lake was too shallow. He saw the waters boil.
He saw his people surrounded by flame, suffocated in a
rain of cinders as black smoke closed in upon them
even as their flesh cooked and fell away from their
bones like meat within the hide boiling bags of the women.
He heard his son, Jhon, and his little daughter,
Li, cry out to him. He saw them melt... he
heard them scream. . . .
He gasped. He would have fallen, knocked flat
by the
devastating power of the vision, had Manaravak not
caught his arm.
"What is it, Brother?"
For a moment he could not breathe. He dropped to his
knees and hung his head and forced himself to inhale as the
Seeing Wind fell away into quiet transparency.
"You must go on, Manaravak. You have far to go if we
are to save those things that will mean life or death to the
People this winter."
"I? What about you?"
"I will follow. With the P."
Manaravak frowned. "You will challenge our father's
decision to remain at the lake?"
"I must challenge him. If I do not, he will die
... and all our people with him."

Torka
stood dead still in a darkness more ominous than any he
had ever known. It was brought down upon the world
by wind-driven clouds of smoke and fire, and in this
unnatural night, as the children whimpered in fear and his
people gathered close around him, Torka was afraid.
Have you erred in this? Should you have led the People away from this
place?
The sickness of despair was on him. His instincts were
raging at him. You must go,
before it is too late! But what if it is already too
late, if the wind intensifies and the fire catches
up with us on open grassland?
"My father!"
"Umak?" He was startled to see the elder of his
twins coming through the smoky gloom. "Why have you come
back? Where is your brother?"
"He goes on to the encampment. You and the others must
go, Father. If you could see the fire and the smoke from the
rise, you would know there is no safety for you here."
"If Torka has said that it is safe, it is
safe!" proclaimed Grek, doubly bold now
since his encounter with the bear.
"The fire has
changed,"
Umak interrupted. "The fire has
grown.
I speak as Shaman, with the voice of the Seeing
Wind. We cannot stay in this place."
Torka knew now and unequivocally that the instinct that
had been driving him to rethink his decision had been
right, for as his eyes met Umak's he shared the
Seeing Wind . . . and the vision of holocaust.
The headman's woman came forward under the rain of
cinders that had begun to fall. "Before we go, we must
all do one more thing!"
Lonit had already insisted that everyone work together
to hastily assemble capes of sodden, mud-slicked
reeds. Every man, woman, and child had donned a
cape. Now, as Torka watched with knitted brow,
Lonit began to gather handfuls of mud from the lake
bottom, and as she told the others to do the same she
started to slather a thick paste of brownish ooze
over her head and face and hands.
"If the forces of Creation are willing," she
explained, "this may protect us from the rain of fire
until we reach the far river!"
No one argued; all saw the wisdom of her words.
How swiftly the long distance had passed when
the day was young and there was no need to hurry. How
slowly the expanse fell away now, when the day was
done and darkness had fallen upon a world that had gone
mad with wind and fire.
Under choking clouds of smoke that continued to rain ash and
cinders upon them, both men and women took turns
carrying the youngest children while the girls and boys raced
on ahead, led by Nantu, who thought himself a man and
said as much whenever the others fell behind.
There was a deep, maniacal, occasionally
explosive roaring behind them now. It was the raging
voice of Fire, Daughter of the Sky-or so the
ancients called her. The band tried not to listen, for
it was said that in order to live, fire must feed upon the
skin and bones and children of the earth.
Naya wept for the dogs and for all the other dying
animals as she ran, half stumbling, until
Larani caught up with her and took hold of her
arm.
"Hurry, Naya! This is no time for tears. Run
with me now! You must be strong and brave, and you must not
look back!"
"But I am not strong! I am not brave! I am-was
"The granddaughter of Grek! And the daughter of
Karana, the greatest magic man of them
all! He watches you now from the world beyond this world. Would
you shame him? Would you shame us all? You keep
insisting that you don't want to be Little Girl
anymore. Well, now is your chance to prove it!
Run, I say, run fast and far!"
This said, Larani lengthened her stride and left
Naya behind to stumble on, crying harder than before.
Larani inadvertently flushed a family of steppe
antelope from cover directly ahead of her. They
leaped upward out of the grass, wild-eyed with terror
as they made high, frantic nick-nicking sounds of
panic. Larani raced on with them as though she were a
member of their herd. When they tried to turn and
circle back, she waved her arms and drove them
on.
"What is the matter with you?" cried the daughter of
Simu and Eneela. "You must run forward unless you
want the Daughter of the Sky to burn you alive!"
Gulping down her tears, Naya was shamed by the sight
of her friend. If Manaravak could see the way
Larani was behaving, he would never smile at Naya
or want her to be his woman when, with only a word
to the council, he might have Larani instead. Drawing
in a breath of hot, smoke-tainted air, Naya
began to run faster. Larani was right. She
must go on! She must give the others no cause
to find fault with her.
And so, willing strength and swiftness into her limbs and
bravery into her heart, she ran. But despite her
best effort, she
was
a little girl, and the years of pampering that had nurtured
happiness in her heart had not nurtured endurance in
her body. In a few minutes she was panting and
weak-legged.
"Run!" she cried in frustration, urging herself
onward.
lana came up from behind with the long, steady stride of a
woman half her years. Naya found it difficult
to keep up with her, even though she soon began
to suspect that lana was holding back, being careful not
to run ahead of Grek, who plodded heavily to her
right with little Yona clinging to his back.
Naya told herself that his heavy breathing had nothing to do
with his age. He was only plodding and wheezing to make
her feel better, for her own step was flagging. It was
growing harder to breathe-there was a terrible stench in her
nostrils, of thick, foul-smelling steam. A
horrifying understanding exploded within her:
The fire has reached the lake! The stench
is of the lake's shallow water turning to steam, and
living things are dying in it. Oh, what would have become
of us had Umak not returned from the rise to warn us
away?
She sobbed, horrified by her thoughts, and was almost
overcome when a cinder burned through the dried and
cracking mud that caked her scalp and caused her
to cry out again, this time in pain and in terror. The fire
was getting closer.
She pulled her steaming cape of reeds over her head
and ran on, gasping for breath.
"Hurry, girl! The others are well ahead of us
now. We will be at the encampment soon! We can rest
later, when we've reached the river's far shore!"
Naya was grateful for lana's encouragement. She
gritted her teeth and resolved to run faster so that
she and not Larani would be the first into camp. She would
make Manaravak see that she was indeed a woman of
strength and courage.
"Ummph!" The sound that came out of Grek was that of a
big animal struggling for breath.
Naya turned her head, expecting him to fall, but
he kept on running, even though his face was
contorted with strain and his eyes were bulging. "Yes .
. dis8he huffed. "Got ... to . . .
keep up ... the pace . . . yes!"
They ran under rolling, choking black clouds until
Grek stumbled. lana cried out in despair. But
before Torka and the others came back to stand around him,
Grek was on his feet again, shaking his head and steadying
his breath and cursing a nonexistent stone.
"Are you all right?"
Grek growled at Torka's question, and his brow
settled over the sunken bridge of his time-battered
nose. "Of course I am all right! Why would I
not be all right? Have you never tripped before? Ummph!
Under such a sky, in such a foul blackness and heat,
I am surprised that not more of us have fallen!"
Yona was sitting on the ground at his feet, her
round, mud-darkened face streaked with tears as she
reached up toward her mother. "Carry me!"
Grek prevented lana from going to the girl. "You
think I cannot carry my girl? You think Grek is
too old? You think Grek will trip again?"
"Yona, go to your father," lana commanded.
The child obeyed, blubbering as the old man lifted her
with one big hand and hefted her onto his hip.
Crek arranged her spindly, mud-painted legs so
that they gripped him firmly around his lower back and
belly, under the protection of his reed cape.
As the girl settled herself in the fold of his arm and
curled her fingers into the long hairs of his
bison-skin robe, he glared down at his sons.
"What are you staring at? You want this man to carry
you, too? Do you think that I could not!"
In unison Tankh and Chuk stepped back from their
father.
"I am no baby to be carried!" Chuk's voice
was tight with constrained resentment.
"And you, Tankh. Does your brother speak for you as
well?"
Tankh glared up at Crek. "I have seen the coming
and going of nine summers. I need no younger brother
to speak for me, and no man needs to carry me
anywhere!"
"Good," Grek approved. "But do not think that this
man, who has placed two spears in the great
bear's backside, could not carry you if there was
need!" His gaze found Naya. "And you,
Granddaughter? There is always room in Grek's
arms for my poor, lost Mahnie's child. Come.
Weariness is in your stance and in your eyes. Grek will
carry both of his little girls!"
"No!" Naya stepped back. "I am almost a
woman, my grandfather. I can run."
They went on, hurrying to make up for lost time, and
although no one spoke the words, all of them were
secretly glad that Grek had stumbled. In the time
that he had taken to rise, steady himself, and regain his
dignity, they had all been able to rest their muscles
and try to catch their breath.
It was all but impossible. Breathing required a
conscious effort, and even then it failed to sustain them.
The air was filled with smoke and heat, and a
terrifying, suffocating darkness was closing in around
them. The children began to f
f
-
u
ir, and old Grek was soon wheezing like a dying
bull. Torka was growing increasingly worried. He
had never icssed a fire like this. The wind, gusting
viciously, was at back one moment, blowing hot and
hard straight out of north, then it dropped
abruptly almost to nothing, only to again from all
directions. Eddying, violent, swirling fun-of
heat and ash and bits of torn grass and shrubs-and
charred remains that he had no wish
to identify-descended out of the clouds to come directly
at the People, slapping and pulling at them as
though invisible hands were trying to carry them away into the
sky.
A woman's scream caused him to wheel around in time
to see a funnel of superheated air descend
directly over Honee. In disbelief, he saw
it rip the cape of reeds from her hands. The
heat-dried reeds exploded into flame as the wind
tore the cape apart and sent its pieces flying
away. Honee collapsed in shock and terror.
Her boy, Jhon, and all the women gathered around
to make certain that she was all right. Summer Moon
and Swan worked with Eneela, Larani, and Naya
to get Umak's woman to her feet again.
Honee was having a difficult time catching her
breath. As she struggled to rise Umak came
to help her. The woman bravely wiped the cinders
from her smoking head and resolutely waved away the
attentive ministrations of Lonit and the other women.
Torka found himself touched by her valiant heart.
"No fuss! No fuss!" Her voice was a
rasping croak as she clasped a hand to her throat and
winced against pain; it was clear from her expression that it
hurt her to breathe, let alone speak. "I am
fine! Daughter of the Sky is welcome to my
cape. Come now, everyone, we must go-was
Realizing that the headman was watching her, she lowered
her head in deference. "It
is
all right to go on?"
He nodded. "Yes, Daughter. It is
imperative
that we go on."
Honee's face split with an expansive
smile. Torka suspected that she was blushing beneath the
mud. Honee's color always rose when he called
her Daughter. The fat woman urged Umak
to hurry as she began to move forward as fast as her
short, thick legs would take her. Torka saw
Umak roll his eyes, then snap at her to stop
nagging.
"Father?" It was Sayanah, his small, strong palm
hot and sweaty as it curled around Torka's hand.
"Where is the river, Father?"
"Ahead," the headman said, swinging the boy up onto
his shoulders. Sayanah offered no protest.
"Will the great mammoth totem be there with Manaravak
and the dogs, waiting to bring luck back to the People?" The
boy's voice was drained of strength as he wrapped
his arms
around Torka's neck and leaned his face
against his father's head.
"We will see!" said Lonit as she came to stand at
her man's side with Swan and Summer Moon.
Torka took the lead again, gradually lengthening his
stride into a lope.
"Soon we will reach the camp and the river," he said
to the strained intake of Lonit's breath and the
exhalations of relief from his daughters.
But on and on he ran. And now the fire was closing
on them, roaring and screaming, hurling debris
overhead until, suddenly, the grassland straight
ahead exploded into a wall of flames, driving the
People back in horror. Torka stopped dead. There
was no hope of reaching the encampment now.
Swan dropped to her knees in despair. He
pulled her to her feefby her hair. "The river!"
he cried, his voice raging to be heard above the
flames. "Turn south, and we
will
reach the river!"
And so, in the rain of fire, they turned south and ran
until old Crek fell again, and Torka turned
back to help him as he commanded the others to go ahead.
No one moved except lana. She put Yona
into Naya's quaking arms. "Take Yona.
You and Chuk and Tankh run for die river! I will
not leave my man."
Everyone hesitated until Torka's words
flailed out at the girl and made her jump. "Go,
Naya! And you, too, lana! Grek and I will
follow!"
Only Grek moved. He sat up, rasping for
breath, and found enough of it to allow him to shake his head and
urge Torka to leave him.
"You will have your wind again in a few moments, you old
bison! In the meantime, do not tell Torka what
to do!"
Simu shook his head and cast a fearful eye at the
sky. "He is old, Torka! If you wait for
him, you will die!"
Torka leveled a dangerous look at him.
"Lead the others to the river, Simu. I
command
you to go! But I will leave no man of this band behind
to burn!"
Simu's face had the look of a cornered wolf.
His dark eyes were full of fire and an emotion that
struck Torka to the heart. "What would the river
gain us without you to lead, Torka? Here, together, you and
I will help Grek to find his feet."
The old man shook his head, but neither Simu nor
Torka
paid him heed. They hefted him by his elbows and,
without another word, led the others on.
"When you two grow weary of his weight, Dak and I
will ease it for you," Umak offered.
"I am no sucking child to be carried along by any of
you young-was
"Prove it!" Torka challenged the old man.
"You are big and bold, but by the forces of Creation,
Grek, you are also
heavyl
So take pity on us and stop arguing!" Torka and
Simu had not carried the old man more than fifty
paces when, with a grunt and a snort, Crek was
running on his own again.
But for how long?
wondered Torka.
Daughter of the Sky was screaming at his back and
raining fire upon his head, and Simu was running beside
him, portending blackly:
"Find the river, old friend, find it soon. Or
soon there will be no People left to get across it!"
It was the howling of beasts pounding close behind her that
caused Naya to look back over her
shoulder and stumble.
"Wanawut!" she shrieked as the forms went running
by through the fiery gloom.
She lay stunned upon the earth. No one had heard
her scream. It had been a while since fatigue
had forced her to put Yona down. lana had swept
the girl up and carried her away. Once again
Naya had fallen behind the others, and she was alone with the
smoke, the fire, and the wanawut. Her heart
stopped in terror, then began to beat again as the dark,
crouching beasts ran ahead without even looking her
way. They ran like massive, hairy, deformed men
knuckling the earth with enormous hands, screeching and
sounding to one another as they vanished into the wind-torn
smoke as though they themselves had been made of nothing more
than mists.
"Get up, Little Girl!"
The shaman lifted her to her feet with one strong hand.
"Umak!" Naya was shaking with fear. "D-did you
s-see them?"
"I saw something," he acknowledged. "Beasts ran
ahead of you, and several bears, I think. No
matter. Escape, not hunger, drives the
animals and the People this night. Come now, Little Girl,
you must move faster!"
Naya sagged against him, nearly swooning with
exhaustion. "I am so tired, Umak!" Her
legs felt as though they were melting, yet his strong
arm held her as he urged her on, following the band
in the direction in which the beasts had run. "Oh,
Umak, they say that wanawut feed upon the flesh of
people. Will they cross the river?"
"Unless they wish to be cooked they will."
She started to cry. "I am so afraid."
His face gentled as his arm tightened around her and
drew her close. "Don't cry. Umak will not
leave you here to feed the flames!"
She buried her face in his chest. She could feel his
heart beating, strong and hard and very fast. Then
suddenly, she heard a deep sigh go out of him, and
even though Jhon was on his back, he lifted her
into his arms.
"Do not be afraid, Nayal I would never let you
come to harm-never." His voice was hoarse with smoke and
strained from his run, but it was as powerful and comforting as his
arms as he carried her to safety as though she weighed
no more than the smoke through which they ran.
Torka found the river at last! But the fire storm
had forced them well south of the broad shallows below the
encampment. He did not know this part of the
river, and he did not like what he saw through the
smoke-shrouded, fire-shot gloom: On its run
to the south, the river had found a mate, and now a new
river stood between Torka's band and the far shore-an
immense body of water that ran fast and deep between
high, clifflike embankments. Animals were
fleeing out of the smoke and plunging forward over the
cliffs, only to be swept off by the current.
He turned to face his bone-weary band and looked
into their streaming eyes. "We cannot make a safe
crossing here."
They went on, exhausted and afraid, with the river
running on one side of them and the fire closing from
behind. Torka saw no safe shallows where the band
might cross the river-only wide, tumultuous,
boulder-islanded deeps in which
drowned and drowning animals rushed by on the current
like pitiful, bobbing refuse. It seemed that the world was
composed of two colors, black and red, a roaring,
raging inferno that was reflected in the water and in the
People's eyes when they looked at one another and tried
not to think of death.
The wind was gaining strength, bonding with the thousand streaming
channels of night wind that were flowing downward from the
high peaks and out of the canyons and stream
drainages.
And now, with a great, cracking roar, a huge body of
fire leaped over them and exploded in midair to rain
not ash or cinders but flame upon them. As Torka
ducked away and waved his arms to ward off the falling
fire, he saw his people doing the same, performing a
terrible dance of terror, whirling and stomping their
feet, casting away their burning capes of reed and
slapping at the flames that seemed set upon consuming
them.
Simu's voice was raised in anguish. "No!
Come back! Wait!"
Torka squinted through the raging inferno to see the
hunter pass his youngest child, Uni, to Eneela and,
without looking back, race forward in pursuit of their
daughter Larani.
The girl was running toward the river-running and
screaming-and as Torka looked on in horror he
saw that she was still wearing her reed cape even though it
was blazing high upon her back. Simu was raging at
her to fling off the garment.
Torka swung Sayanah down from his back and
placed him at Lonit's side. The headman was
running now, and Demmi appeared abreast of him.
Umak had put down Grek's
granddaughter and little Jhon to run beside them.
Torka lengthened his stride in pursuit of the running
girl, threw back his head, and bellowed a roar that
was a curse of frustration against the unspeakable
unfairness of it all. There was something about Larani that
had always pleased him and made his spirit smile-a
certain easy self-assurance that, even as a
toddler, had set her apart from others and made her
Simu's pride and joy. Again he roared.
He was running so fast that he had left the others
behind. He was closing on Larani. The sparks and
bits and pieces of her cape were flying back at
him, stinging his face. He could smell the stink of
burning hair and knew that more than Larani's cape
was afire.
Suddenly, as he reached out for her, a cyclonic
eddy of searing wind descended from out of the blackness
to lift the girl off her feet and into the clouds. The
force of the blast knocked him flat, and as he lay
sprawled and staring in incredulity he saw Larani
hurled like a flaming brand into the river.
Under the roaring fallout of fire, it was Grek who
went after her, shoving Simu and Dak aside
to plunge into the rushing torrent as though he had no
fear of it.
"No!" shrieked lana. "Larani is lost! Let
her go! You will drown, Grek!"
Torka's ears were ringing from the blast. He fought his
way to his feet. Umak and Demmi, he saw,
had also been felled by the tornadic wind. His heart
sank as he saw his children lying motionless upon the earth.
Then Umak cursed and leaped up, slapping at
sparks that were burning his scalp and the backs of his
hands. Honee was helping him; too aggressively,
apparently, for he stopped slapping at himself and
instead batted away his woman until she backed
off and bumped into Dak, who was lifting a
semiconscious Demmi.
"Torka." Lonit was beside him, touching him
tentatively, as though she was not certain if he was
truly still alive. Her face was twisted with
remorse as she looked up at him. "Always and
forever, Torka, we have been together, and we will be together,
even now, at the end."
"End?"
Yes . . . the word swam in her eyes; along with
sadness and regret and surrender that cut him to his
soul.
"No!" His heart was pounding. "The forces of Creation
have been with us this far! Why would they abandon us
now? I will not believe that they have done so! I will not
accept this!" He could not bring himself to speak the word
death.
His spirit seemed to be swelling within him, feeding upon a
rush of blood drawn upward from some inner well of
resolve that made him feel suddenly light-headed
with the power of pure intent. He turned, stared back
at the way they had come, and then ahead.
Lonit was right. Despite his protestations, in
another moment it would all be over. The fire was all
around them. The river lay ahead. The river-too
deep to cross, too dangerous even to try. And
yet in the fire there was certain death. Was there not in the
danger of the river at least some small hope of
survival? He doubted it.
He fixed his eyes upon the river, and as a visibly
stunned Simu knelt upon the embankment wailing his
lost daughter's name, Torka watched in horror as
old man Grek was swept away and away and then,
incredibly, found his footing.
Torka started. Was he imagining it? No!
Armpit-deep in the onrushing current and fighting for
every step, the old man was well out from shore, but he was
not drowning or being carried away.
"Look!" Simu was pointing.
"Do you see that?" Umak's voice cracked like an
adolescent boy's as he shouted in excitement.
They all saw it: Grek was on his feet and
battling his way downriver to where Larani's body
had been washed by the current and now lay lodged between
several large boulders, which rose like a jagged-toothed
island amid the torrent.
"He has reached my girl . . . my poor
burned and drowned girl!" sobbed Eneela.
Even as the woman of Simu spoke, Torka saw
Grek reach the boulders, then slip and disappear under
the rushing waters.
Beside him, Lonit hung her head and whispered
Grek's name softly, in an incantation of grief and
loss.
But just when the headman was certain that Grek was lost,
Torka caught his breath. The old man had
surfaced on the other side of the boulders. He
flailed his great arms, propelling himself toward the
rocks. When he gained the boulders, he hung
draped over the rocks, resting, catching his breath.
Then, like a sodden bison levering himself out of a deep
wallow, he struggled up, found solid footing
once again, and clambered over the boulders to stand
upright.
He raised a beckoning arm to them all. "Come!"
Grek cried loudly and proudly. "The current will
carry you, yes! It is shallow here-a good, safe
place to wait until Daughter of the Sky is
tired of eating up the dry land and its children! Use the
bolas to tie yourselves together so no one will be swept
away! The forces of Creation are smiling upon the people of
Torka, yes!"
Torka's head went high. It would be a dangerous
crossing, but in danger there was hope!
"Come!" Grek called again, gesticulating
wildly. "For what do you wait?"
Torka's heart beat in his throat as he turned
to stare back at the way they had come. There was one more
favor to be
asked of the forces of Creation before he led his people into the
river.
"Father Above, Mother Below, be with my son
Manaravak. If he still lives, he will need all
of your magic to get him through this night alive."
Manaravak had crossed and recrossed the river.
Still his people had not come.
Sometime during the first crossing, the dogs had joined
him-a bedraggled pack of six led by Companion,
Squirrel Killer, and the little gray bitch
that the people called Snow Eater.
Manaravak had known from their stance and the confused,
empty look in their eyes that the animals were all that
was left of their pack. They were droop tailed and
exhausted, but except for Squirrel Killer's
missing left ear and Companion's bloodied snout,
they were all in one piece.
Manaravak had been grateful when they came to his
side and helped him move the camp of the People,
yielding to the weight of subsequent packs and to the
drag of a fully loaded sledge. Man and dogs
had worked together until all felt the need for rest.
By then it was night. They sat in the rising wind on the
far shore of the river amid the things they had labored
to save. In troubled silence they had listened to the
raging roar of the fire and watched it advance. Deep
within both man and dogs, the beast of panic stirred.
"The People will come," Manaravak had said.
Companion put up his battered snout and loosed a
howl. Knowing that the dog was calling to Umak,
Manaravak had joined in. Man and dog howled
together, then waited, listening for an answer. There had
been none.
"Come," he said, rising and heading for the shallows again.
"There is still more to bring across the water. One
more crossing is all I ask. By the time we have
returned to this shore, the People will be here."
The dogs did not agree.
Restless, Manaravak recrossed the shallows
alone, knowing that work seemed to keep panic at bay.
There was one more hut to disassemble . . . one more series
of bone thongs to yank from the earth, one more ridge
pole of camel rib to drop, one more quick search for
precious tools and leather bags of oil and fat and
dried meat, and one more hasty
spreading of waterproof floor cloth over the
remaining hide tent covering.
A blast of hot, searing air flew overhead like a
flaming, screaming bird. He took no note of
it. At last, with his eyes burning and tearing and his
lungs screaming for air, all was assembled before him.
These were the things that would mean life or death to the band in
the coming long dark days of winter. He had saved them
all!
His people would rejoice to see what he had done. Hefting the
staggering weight up and across his shoulders, he rose,
stood against the wind, and looked east across the
shallows. He stared in disbelief. The fire had
leaped the river, and the far shore was ablaze!
Panic formed a fist that struck him hard in
the belly and roused the nauseating chill of dread as
he instinctively wheeled around to stare westward . .
. westward ... in the direction from which he had come .
. . westward in the direction from which his people would come
to join him.
What he saw caused him to drop his load: An
unbroken wall of roaring wind-whipped flame towered
before him. His heart seemed to fall into his gut. His
people could never come through such fire, and if they had tried,
they were dead. All dead.
"No!"
The word seemed to enrage Daughter of the Sky.
Wind-borne, she leaped overhead, turned her
body inside out, and as Manaravak stared up, in an
explosion of power and heat and white-hot flame she
knocked him flat. Stunned, he lay sprawled
on his belly, facedown and burning.
It was the heat of flames touching flesh that roused him
instantly. He cried out in anger and was on his
feet, running and screaming as he hurled himself into the
cold shallows, where he rolled and howled like a
mindless animal until the strong teeth and jaws of
another animal grabbed him by the back of the tunic
and, before he could right himself, dragged him downstream and
into deeper water.
PART III
IN THE LAND OP THE BURNED MOON
All that night they stayed upon the rocky islet in the
cold rush of the river. Huddled in shivering, frightened
family groups, the adults clutched their little ones
to them and faced downstream with the largest boulders at their
backs lest they be swept away by the river that flowed
blood red with reflected firelight. The night
roared with the explosive power of fire storms, and
Daughter of the Sky ate freely of the dry land.
Nothing, Naya thought, curled protectively within
the sodden lap of old Grek, could hope to escape
the fire's ravenous feeding frenzy unless it had dared
to seek safety within the river. From all around her
came the distant cries of the dying animals:
bleatings, mewings, screamings, terrible roarings, and
fear-crazed howlings.
She felt sick with loss.
Manaravak, where are you? And Squirrel Killer
and Companion and all of the dogs! Oh, please be
safe!
Burying her head in the wet strands of Grek's
bison-skin robe, Naya wept as she heard the
low and terrible moans of agony that came from
Larani.
"Better perhaps if this man had not pulled that one from the
waters." The old man's voice was flat with
sorrow. "Her back and her face-her poor,
pretty face-so badly burned ..."
"It should have been me, not Larani!" cried Naya,
overcome with guilt. Without another word, she left
old Grek and went carefully to where Larani lay in
Simu's embrace.
Eneela knelt close by, haggard and beyond tears.
"What is it, Naya?"
"I ..." The words stuck in her throat as she
looked down at her friend. Simu's arm lay over the
girl, shielding her from the constant fall of
wind-driven ash, but Naya could see that he had
swathed her in bandages made of strips of buckskin
cut from his own tunic. Soaked in river water, they
must have cooled her burns. Nevertheless, she was moving
her limbs restlessly and plucking at the air with her
hands as she mewed and moaned like a wounded animal.
Simu looked up at Naya out of a face stretched
taut by grief. "What do you want, girl?"
"To ... be of help," she stammered.
Under the burning sky, Simu seemed about to weep.
Instead he snarled as he drew his arm away and
gestured Naya closer. "Look before you
speak, Little Girl! You may have been instructed in
the healing ways by your grandmother, but for my Larani there
can be no healing, no help, and no comfort!"
Naya's eyes widened. Until now she had not
been able to bring herself to venture close enough to see the
extent of Larani's burns. She stepped back,
sickened and relieved beyond measure that it was the
daughter of Simu and not the granddaughter of Grek
who had been burned. In abject misery, she
turned and fled back to the comfort and consolation of
Grek's lap.
After the bottom fell away under Manaravak, the
water was suddenly colder, the current fester. The
river took a sharp turn and carried him and the beast
clamping onto him into an area of deeps between high
rocks that sent water eddying ferociously and spray
flying high.
Companion held him as long as possible, but by the time
Manaravak recognized his savior and tried to get
an arm around the big dog's neck, it was too
late. If Companion barked in fear, Manaravak
did not know; his own howling was far too loud. The
river changed course again, and the water flowed fast and
dark, first through narrows and then through wide stretches of
open country. He could see the fire
burning on both shores, reflected in the water and
in the frenzy-wide eyes of the dog as the whirling
current spun them into a series of eddies, then
smashed them over and against a rough shoal of boulders that
angled steeply out from the far shore.
Manaravak recognized shoreline and cried out,
grabbing desperately for dry land only to fall
short of it. He lost sight of Companion, but other
animals, large and small, were helpless in the wild
course of the twisting rapids. Some were dead-burned and
drowned, even as he was burned and drowned.
The beast of panic had consumed his spirit. He was no
longer Manaravak, the son of Torka and Lonit.
He was wanawut, son of the beast, only one more
animal fighting for life, raging and flailing and
howling until another of the
river's many sharp turns sent him smashing onto a
sandy spit of land where he lay gasping and weeping with
exhaustion and relief.
Something with small paws ran over his back, then
something with hooves, and then something with paws again. He
turned and saw a squirrel and an antelope
skittering off after a small, scorch-eared hare. And
then he heard a horse neighing in agony, and levering
up onto his palms, he looked up to see
a stallion plunging down from the stone walls of a
high cliff. The horse, afire as it fell,
scattered flames and burning hair and flesh as it
landed. Manaravak rolled away just in time and heard
the sickening snap of its forelimbs and neck as it
rolled forward, rump over head, and came to rest on
its side. It moaned once, then died beside him, its
mane and tail still aflame, its body burned
black, its eyes oozing fluid.
Suddenly maddened by the horror of the moment,
Manaravak was on his feet. His limbs were bruised
and battered, but he was running, away from the burned and
broken horse, away from certain death along the
river, clambering and falling over boulders, racing
inland. He was an animal, a savage, purely
reflexive beast running in fire-maddened fury
until he could run no more, until he could not breathe
and fell upon his knees, then his face, gasping in the
choking, boiling cloud of smoke that lay upon the land.
The smoke-thick air that he drew into his lungs
was killing him.
The land was black and smoking on both shores, but the
wind was down and a steady rain was falling out of a gray
and heavy sky. The fire was out. Daughter of the Sky
would feed no more upon the earth this day.
"We cannot stay in this place," Torka declared.
"With the rain, the river has already begun to rise.
Soon these islets will be underwater."
No one argued. The terrifying night had brought them
rest if not ease, and although all were suffering from smoke
inhalation and fatigue, they knew that the headman was
right.
In silence the band members did what they could to comfort
the little ones and the cruelly burned Larani, then
prepared themselves to go back across the river in the same
way that they had come. Torka surprised them with his
command:
"We must go
with
the current, not against it."
"Downstream? But how?" asked Dak, obviously not
liking what he heard. "The water runs too fast
and too deep."
Torka silenced him with a wave of his hand. He stared
downstream for many long moments before, at length, he
spoke evenly: "Look downstream. The river is
pocked with islets much like this one. With luck, what
worked for Grek last night should work for us again now."
"But how?" pressed Dak again. "Last night half
of us were nearly swept away as we
followed Grek's lead. Even with the little ones tied
to our backs we nearly lost them."
From where she crouched alone atop the tallest boulder,
Demmi sneered down at her man. "You have the heart
of an old woman, Dak! Do not boast of it!"
Torka ignored his daughter as he eyed Dak
sternly. The young man had been questioning his decisions much
too readily these days. He wondered if he had
given Dak cause to doubt him or to chafe against his
will. Despite Dak's lack of innovativeness, his
very stolidness occasionally proved a steadying force.
Now, however, the ultimate responsibility rested
upon Torka's shoulders, andwiththe rain intensifying and the
river rushing by, he knew what he must do.
"We cannot stay here," he said firmly. "The other
islets angle shoreward until that last and farthest
one, which nearly touches on dry land. With luck-was
"We have not had much of that lately," reminded Simu
sharply as he looked up at Torka from where he
knelt beside Eneela over the curled form of their
daughter Larani. Indicating the girl with a single
downward nod, Simu glared openly at the
headman. "Or is it possible that you would call
this
luck?" His voice was as hard as the
boulders of the islet.
Torka's voice was harder. "With care and in a
proper encampment, Larani's burns will heal. In
time she will be well again."
"And scarred, forever scarred!" Eneela sobbed against
her grief.
Anger flared hot within Torka. "She is alive,
woman! We are
all
alive! And yes, Simu, I
do
call this luck! There was a time last night when I was
not certain if any of us would live to see another
dawn! If the fire storm had not hurled Larani
into the river, she would have burned to death, and we would
never have found this refuge from the flames."
"The forces of Creation were with us last night," the
shaman reminded the others.
Torka turned to see that Umak had come to stand beside
him.
"Were they?" Dak challenged. "Where is your
brother, then? And your dog? Where are any of the
dogs?"
Umak's eyes narrowed defensively as his head
went high. "I cannot say," he replied
unflinchingly. "But the People are one. Torka and the
forces of Creation have brought us through the fire and-was
"Umak speaks truth!" The volatile exclamation
came from Honee. She was looking proudly and
adoringly at her much younger man. "Umak saw the
danger to us in the lake! He spoke with the voice of the
Seeing Wind! If Umak says that the forces of
Creation have been with Torka and this people, then it is so!"
Umak's face remained set and expressionless.
He stood as Shaman, with his arms raised and his
face set, impervious to the falling rain as he
spoke:
"Let no man or woman forget that the forces of
Creation walk at Torka's back! We must put
our faith in them and in Torka, who has not failed
us in the past."
The People stared and murmured. A sobered Dak kicked
at the waters that swirled around his ankles and turned
away.
A moment later Umak lowered his arms and faced his
father. No one but Torka saw the wink that lowered the
shaman's right lid.
"Well?" Dak pressed the headman. "Do not
keep your wisdom to yourself, Torka! How are the
forces of Creation going to get us across the
river?"
Torka's eyes narrowed as he looked at the young
man and saw through the deception of his abrasive
challenge. Dak was tired and afraid.
"We will cross the river," the headman said, "as we
crossed the burning land: with courage and strength!"
Only a few of the band made the move to stand.
"We will need to make the longest, strongest rope that
we can possibly devise," Torka continued.
"A rope?" Dak's brow came together over the
bridge of his nose like a gathering storm cloud. "Of
what possible use will a rope be to us now?"
"Be still, Dak!" Torka commanded. "I am your
headman, not your woman! You will not bicker with me!"
He whirled
around, sensing Demmi's smirk. "You will not say a
word or offer insult to your man! You will do as you are
bidden, both of you!"
"What would you have us do, Torka?" Lonit's question
calmed the moment.
He commanded his people to cast off their clothes and to cut them
into long, wide strips. Following his instructions,
they fashioned a rope of the still-sodden strips of
hide. The women set aside strips of thong from the
main body of the rope; with these they were to bind
their children to their backs. The work, shared by all, was
finished quickly.
"I will go first," Torka said. "Once I reach the
first islet, I will secure my end of the rope, andwiththe
other end secured here, you will all be able to follow,
clinging to it. When the last man comes across, we will
rest, then go on again, using the rope to guide us from
one islet to the next until we-until the forces of
Creation and the spirits of the river carry us all in
safety to the
far
shore."
Lonit's eyes remained full of fear, but she was
wise enough not to voice her misgivings.
"The smaller boys must be carried-I will hear no
argument about it. Simu, you will carry Larani upon your
back."
His way would be dangerous, but it was the only way.
It was raining harder now-already the water level around the
boulders was noticeably rising.
Torka tested the river. He was naked except for a
length of thong, which was cross laced over his chest and
shoulders to bind his spears laterally across his back,
and a single twist of rope, which was wound around his waist,
securing his bludgeon and spear hurler
to his side. Grek and Simu held on to the other
end of the rope, feeding it to Torka as needed.
The cold of the water attacked him, penetrating his
skin until he was certain that his entire body was on
the brink of shattering like brittle ice.
Stunned, Torka grasped for purchase. His fingers
were torn by contact with the rough surface of the stones, but
he managed to pull himself from the water. After he
clambered onto the rocks, he sat awhile, head
down, arms resting on his bare knees. He could hear
his people cheering. Simu and Grek were shouting
enthusiastically as they waved and held up the other end
of the rope. He was too exhausted to wave or call
back, but the tug of the rope against his skin was
gratifying. The rope had held!
With the rain falling on his bare back, he found himself
smiling with sweet irony as he noted that only one
twist of the knotted line remained around his waist.
There had been just enough of it to bind him to those whom he had
left behind . . . just enough to form a link between the islets
. . . just enough to give his people a chance.
Just enough. It was all that any man could ask for.
In the hours that followed, with Torka steadying the line
that meant life or death to his people, the band crossed
to the second islet, and not one of them was
lost to the river, even though cold and exhaustion
weighed heavily upon them. The little ones wept against the
terror of the additional crossings that were still required of
them.
From one rocky islet to another, Torka led his people
on until he found a long tongue of shallows that
led to the far shore. And there they sat, clustering and
rubbing one another for warmth as they looked back at
the way they had come and, through chattering teeth, gave
thanks to the forces of Creation, to the spirits of the river,
and to luck for having granted them their lives.
Later, in the long Arctic twilight, Torka and
his people sat shivering themselves warm within raw, uncured
skins taken from the many drowned animals that littered
the river shores.
Beneath a still-bloody moose hide, Umak was
distracted by the raised voice of his sister Dejnmi.
"He lives!" she cried to the hunters. "I know that
he lives! How can you all just sit here when he is
lost? You must get up and help me find him!"
"Sit down, woman!" Dak's voice was heavy with
fatigue. "We must regain our strength. By that time,
if he
is
alive, he will probably have found his way
to us!"
"But-was
"Demmi, do as you are bidden!" Torka's command
silenced her. "Your man speaks for us all."
Umak was grateful. The last thing he needed now was
to listen to the endless bickering of Demmi and Dak.
He did not understand them. They had once been such a
happy couple. But he was too tired to think about that.
Even a shaman needed his rest. He folded his arms
around his knees and tried to sleep. It was no good;
Umak was also worried
about Manaravak. Had he survived the conflagration?
Had he managed to cross the river, and if he had,
were any of the dogs with him?
Companion. Where are you, old friend?
Almost in answer to his unspoken question, the sound of
howling rose out of the distant hills. Fire-shot
images flared in Umak's mind as he recalled the
smoke-blurred forms he had glimpsed at the
height of the fire.
Wanawut.
Now he listened to the distant howls and wondered if it
was wanawut that he heard. For so many years the People
had believed that there were no more wanawut left in all
the world-and then they had found their sign, and
all but Manaravak had trembled in fear of them.
Had the strange beasts that seemed to be half bear and
half man survived the fire and crossed the river?
were they out there now, howling at the sky until their
sounding was lost in undulating hills and pummeled
into the earth by the falling rain?
Umak's eyes grew heavy. He dozed until a
single wail awoke him. He looked up. No one
else seemed to have heard it. But it was there,
resonating in his heart long after the sound itself was gone:
the cry of a man.
Manaravak . . . his
Umak was sitting upright now, wide-awake, and his
heart was beating very hard. Had he heard his twin? Was
his brother howling with beasts in the far and unknown reaches
of this burned land? He waited for the sound to repeat itself
and was glad when it did not.
Somewhere deep within himself, guilt stirred. What kind
of a brother was he? Manaravak was his twin! Did
he not want him to return to the People? Of course he
did! But . . . if Manaravak did
not
return, who would speak for Naya when at last she
came to her time of blood? He swallowed hard.
He would not allow himself to think this way. He
was dishonoring himself and his brother and the girl.
Honee began to snore beside him, her girth a
restless mound beneath the warmth of the charred elkskin that he
had skinned for her. Li and Jhon were curled up
asleep in the warm protection of her fleshy arms and
breasts. He smiled to know that they were both safe, but
the smile was short-lived. If only Honee were not
so fat! If only Honee were . . . Naya.
They searched for Manaravak along the river. No
trace of him was found. Then the weather worsened, and the
pounding rain obliterated all hope of picking up
any sign of him.
"We must go back." Torka's voice was bleak.
"No! We must go on!" insisted Demmi.
"When the weather clears," the headman told her.
"There is no way that we are going to find anything in
this."
For two days they rested on the scorched embankment,
recouping their strength while a driving, sleet-stinging
rain fell. Wolves sang songs of death and
sorrow from the fire-blackened hills.
Harder and harder fell the rain, and the band knew that if
Manaravak were alive, he would have to find his way
to them.
"I told you that we should have gone on when we
still had the chance!" Demmi's accusation stung them
all.
Lonit stood tall and resolute against a mother's
worst fears. "He who is lost has been lost
before," she said, betraying none of the inner turmoil that
was tearing at her heart. "He has come back to his
people from across great distances, from out of the arms of a beast, and
from across time itself. And so we must have hope. It would be
an insult to the spirits to assume otherwise."
But hope was drowned in the pummeling rain as the
families watched the islets disappear in the rising
river. Swollen animal corpses floated past
the embankment-hare and wolverine, horse and lion,
sloth and leaping cat, antelope and lynx and
mouse-carnivore and herbivore had become prey
to the river.
Because of the animals' death, Torka and his people were able
to survive. There was meat for the taking, which the band ate
raw-no one wanted to see fire again, even in the
most controlled circumstances, for a very long time. They
cut the skins from the animals for sleeping skins and
crude shelter.
In one such lean-to, Dak lay on his side, with
Kharn asleep in the fold of his arm. Sleep would
have come easily to Dak had Demmi not been
stretched out on her back beside him, wide-awake and
staring up into darkness.
"We will find him, woman," said Dak quietly,
knowing that her thoughts were with her brother.
"You are no shaman!"
"No. I am only your man, trying to ease your
heart."
Her breath was a ragged pull of pain as she turned
toward him and whispered desperately, "Find him for
me, Dak. You are a fine tracker, a steady
hunter."
"I would if I could, Demmi," he assured her.
"If it would make you smile at me once more." His
arm moved across the sleeping boy to touch her cheek,
to trace slowly the contours of her face and to push
back the strands of her long hair and let the ends
slip through his fingers. "What has happened between us,
woman? Why do you scald me with your tongue and
turn your back upon me in the night when we once
found such pleasure in one another?"
A tremor went through her as her hand rose to rest upon
his. "He is out there somewhere, Dak . . . alone,
as he was before, with no one to care for him, no one
to love him."
Resentment hardened his tone. "He is a
strong and capable man now, Demmi. He will
survive until we find him or he finds us."
Demmi propped herself up on her elbow. Even in
the darkness Dak could see that her eyes were bright with
hope. "Together we could find him!" The tension of her
body changed to become supple and vibrant. "If
we left now, no one would know until-was
"The weather is foul, Demmi. Until we have a
chance to replace our lost clothes we-was
"Clothes! I do not care about clothes."
"Even so, Demmi, my sister Larani is badly
burned. I would not leave her. Besides, who would care
for Kharn?"
"You are not his mother!"
The statement took him aback. "No, but
you
are."
"Bah! I have given birth, but I am not much for
mothering. There are enough women in this camp for that. Swan
loves to watch Kharn . . . almost as much as she
loves to watch you!"
The unexpected teasing lightened his spirit. This was the
Demmi he had loved since boyhood. He
smiled, reached up, and touched her mouth
provocatively with the backs of his fingers.
"Swan is a girl. You are a woman. My
woman."
She brushed his hand away, and hostility flashed in
her eyes. "Not now, Dak! I will
not
stay in this camp while Manaravak is lost. If
you and the other hunters are not man enough to take up the
search again, I will go alone!"
Awakened by his mother's shout, Kham sat up and
began to reach for her.
"Be still, you! Go back to sleep! I am done with
nursing you! It is time you were weaned!" Demmi pushed
the boy away.
Kharn burst into tears and sought safety against
Dak's broad chest.
Dak laid his wide hand upon Kham's back and
eyed Demmi as though she were a stranger. "I
don't understand you," he said quietly.
With a tremulous exhalation that somehow hinted of
regret, she lay down and turned her back to him.
"No need," she said at length. "Manaravak
does."
The rain continued. Days passed. Within their
lean-tos, the adults reassembled the
necessities of life. When enough sinew was
extracted from the carcasses of dead animals, they
fashioned awls out of whittled bone and set to the
task of piecing together rough garments. The fumbling
fingers of the men and boys generated small smiles of
weary amusement that proved to be good medicine for the
People's troubled spirits.
But there was no medicine to help Larani. She lay
alone within a special lean-to that Simu had
raised for her so that she might recuperate from her
burns in peace. Poultices were made of moist
squares of still-bloody, tissue-slick hide.
Eneela soaked them in the river and impregnated them
with pounded fat and marrow that would quicken the healing of the
girl's burns, but Larani knew none of this. She
knew only the excruciating, endless pain.
Someone was always with her. She was dimly aware of
quiet comings and goings and low, muted whispers. She
could feel herself being watched. Somehow the pressure of
staring eyes hurt her skin and made her moan. The
whispers were a soft, irritating hum that beat upon her
eardrums and
made her want to scream. When she did, the
watchers fell silent, and she was glad. In silence
she was alone, able to lie motionless, breathing deeply,
concentrating on the slow, rhythmic pull and
release of each and every breath. It was the only way
to control the pain: to think of one thing, to concentrate so
hard that nothing else existed.
But now Simu was breaking her concentration.
"How is it today, Larani? Not so bad as
yesterday?" His voice sounded far away, as though he
were looking in the opposite direction as he spoke
to her. Everyone seemed to do that, but Larani did not
ask herself why. She only wished he would stop
talking because his words stirred the air and caused her
skin to hurt.
He kept on, his voice strained by his attempt
at an uncharacteristic levity. "Naya and Swan just
left. They told me that you aren't eating, Larani.
You
must
eat, Daughter. Your mother is beginning to worry about
you, you know! No need for that, I said to her. Why, with
Larani's two best friends hovering close by, our
girl will soon be up and eating and talking away about
all the things that young girls love to talk about. You
will
be well soon, Larani, and ..." His voice
cracked. When he spoke again, it was with an edge of
desperation. "I wanted to go after you! You must
know that, Larani! The old man took me
by surprise when he shoved me back. He is
stronger than I thought possible! And then, afterward, it
seemed that the river had swept you away, and there
seemed to be no sense in . . ." His voice
broke. "Larani, can you forgive me for not being the one
to save you? Larani, can you hear me?"
"Forgive?" The query cost her, as had the opening of
her eyes. Even so small a movement as the parting of
her lips or the raising of her lids set the beast of
agony loose again. The pain was so intense that it
blinded her. She did not know what her father was talking
about, nor did she care. Her memories of the fire
were her own. They ended not in flame and terror but with the
dark, cold, explosive embrace of the river as it
had carried her away from her pain and into oblivion.
She yearned for that now. The pain was so excruciating
that all she wanted was to be away from it. "Let me
die!" she cried. "Please, Father, let me
die!"
"Oh, my poor burned girl!" Eneela entered the
lean-to and knelt next to Simu. "Be brave!
Be strong! We have all searched the land for unburned
stalks or leaves of willow, for
the spirits that eat pain live within willow
trees, and sooner or later we will find some to ease
you, dear child. We will! We must!"
"Be brave, Daughter. The pain will soon
pass," promised Simu. "In the meantime,
Umak has made offerings to Father Above and Mother
Below, to ease the pain of Larani and to bring
Manaravak safely back to the P. Let our
shaman's magic ease your spirit as you thank the forces
of Creation for sparing your life."
"Manaravak ... is lost?" A small
burn-blackened hand curled and tightened around
Simu's broad wrist as Larani's body
convulsed against agony. "Has Daughter of the Sky
taken us both? Oh, let me go to him, then. Let
me walk the wind with him! Please! Take my
life! It hurts so much that I do not want it
anymore!"
Her words struck Simu to his heart. The girl was
right. A burned girl ... a scarred girl . . .
what sort of woman would she be? Ugly.
Deformed. No man would look at her. She would be
of no use to the band. There was no sense prolonging her
pain. He knelt over her.
"Larani ..." He whispered his daughter's name for the
last time as, with her hand still holding his wrist,
Simu's fingers closed about her slender throat.
Tears were welling in his eyes.
"Yes ..." the girl consented, smiling for the first time
since the fire-a twisted, pain-racked smile that was
meant to encourage him. "Please, my father . . .
please ..."
He would have strangled her then and there. Death would have
come quickly, mercifully. But little Uni began to cry,
and Eneela's sudden heartrending wail of anguish
brought the headman racing to their shelter.
"What is it? Is something . . . ?" Torka stared
in from the rain, with Umak and Dak behind him. Understanding
dawned instantly on all three faces.
"No!" Dak's exclamation was of disbelief, then of
terrible acquiescence as he turned away, realizing
that his sister was about to die.
Umak's face was set. "I have implored the spirits
on Larani's behalf. Can you not wait?"
"She is in pain!" Simu's voice broke with
despair. "Let it be done!"
"Wait!" Torka's word allowed no argument as he
bent and entered the little lean-to on his knees.
Gently he drew
away the poultices that covered her and tried not to show
his revulsion at the sight that filled his
eyes and the stench that assailed his nostrils.
She lay on her right side. Her shoulder and upper
back as well as her entire left arm and the side of
her face had gone black. Her hair lay in
patches, in places crisped and gray like a matting
of fibrous ash; in others it was as though fingers of
flame had extended across her brow and cheek, leaving
deep gouges in the soft young flesh and altering the
composition of her hair, so that the once long, thick,
and lustrous strands had melted and congealed into the
glutinous cap that was the upper left quadrant of
her scalp.
But the burns were confined to only a portion of her
body. The rest of her was beautiful to behold, pale
and newly come into the form of a woman . . . soft,
almost white in the gloom and shadow of the little tent. Her
thighs and breasts and hips were fully rounded, and the
sight of that part of her could not help but stir the man in
him, for despite her burned face and arm and
shoulder, Larani possessed the body of a bearer of
life.
"The future of the People lies here," he said
quietly. "Larani must not die."
Manaravak looked up through the rain. Before him, the
bloated, sodden bodies of collapsed
animals littered the riverbank. A caribou calf
rose from its mother's side, staggered forward, and then
fell into a heap. There was also a badly burned
badger next to a dead leaping cat; he stared at the
creature, knowing just how weak he was when he felt no
desire to take the cat's fangs. Of what good was
adornment to a dying man or to an animal-and at this
moment Manaravak was both.
He dropped his head, panted like a dog trapped in
an airless hut, and then, through slitted eyes and
blurred vision, he saw Squirrel Killer lying
motionless on its side. He moved forward, seeing a
friend in the dog, finding comfort in the nearness as he
buried his face in the dog's wet fur. But comfort
twisted back on him. There was no movement in the
rib cage- no breath, no heartbeat. The dog was
cold and dead.
A wail of remorse drained out of Manaravak,
and a terrible weariness filled him as he sighed and
rested his head upon the body of Squirrel Killer.
If he must die, he would die here with a friend.
Naya's friend.
Naya. Lovely, silly, adorable Naya. still
am sorry that you will not see this dog or this man again.
It would have been
food between us.
He smiled a little just thinking of her. He rifted out
of consciousness, following the vision of the naked girl
into the sun and beyond until something small and pawed ran
over his back.
He swatted up and sideways. When he felt
wet fur bounding past him, he opened an eye in time
to see the scorch-eared hare that had run across his back
once before. Strange to see it twice, he thought,
then realized that disthere must be many a hare with scorched
ears. The animal seemed to know exactly where it was
going. In long, leaping strides it ascended the side
of the high, dark embankment and disappeared.
Intrigued, Manaravak sat up. Above the river
at the height of three or four men together, a dark
shadow cut laterally across the face of the embankment.
It was into this shadow that the hare had disappeared.
For the first time since the fire, the young man felt
hope. He was on his feet in an instant, following
the hare. And then, with a wolflike howl of pure
triumph, he saw what he had known that he would
see: a cave! He was no stranger to caves; the
wanawut had raised him in one. And this one had an
opening large enough to welcome a man.
He went in, scenting for carnivorous
occupants. His nostrils drew in only the scent
of wet river rock, old hare droppings, and nest
material. Bending low, he went on along a
wide, deep corridor. With renewed hope of
survival, he took little note of the walls of
gravelly scree or of the seepage that oozed from between
the stones. The deeper he went, the cleaner and cooler
the air. He found it delicious and nourishing and
breathed in and out until he was lightheaded.
Dizzy, he stopped, brought short by common sense and
total darkness. He was surprised that he had come so
far inside. With a sigh, he began to edge his way
back. It was slow going, but at last he reached a
place where he could see dim light. He seated
himself and turned about. But in that moment, there was a
rumbling in the earth above him as a herd of panicked
animals fled toward the river. The rumbling seemed
to shake the world to its roots as the roof of the cave
began to collapse around him.
The rain stopped at the end of the third dawn. It was
the absence of its sound that woke Umak. From beneath
eyelids
heavy with need of sleep, he watched his father, armed with
spears and bludgeon, emerge from his lean-to and stand
tall beneath the glow of the rainless dawn. The
young man rubbed his eyes. It had been his turn
to guard the camp from predators. Now he expected
Torka to take a turn at keeping watch.
But Torka made no move toward his son.
Instead, the man surveyed the camp as though he
might never see it again, then he turned and walked
off toward the northeast.
"Wait!" Umak intercepted his father. "Where are you
going?"
"Back." Torka's face was haggard and drawn.
"The land is dead, Umak. We must leave it. We
must seek and follow the great mammoth into the face of the
rising sun. Our luck lies with our totem. But
first I must search once more for my son."
"We have all looked for sign of him. There is
none!"
"I will go farther upriver this time, to where our encampment
stood . . . and beyond, if it comes to that. If there is
no sign of him, in five days' time-the length of time
that a life spirit stays within a body and the dead must be
watched lest they come back to life again-I will
return. Then we will go on our way."
"You cannot go alone!"
"I have walked alone for much of my life, Umak.
I will not risk the other hunters to this trek.
It is my son who is lost."
"This son will go with you!"
"No, Umak. You have a woman and two children to care
for. And if for any reason I did not return, the
People will need their shaman more than ever, and your mother and little
brother will have need of a man to hunt for them."
"If he lives, do you not think that he would have found his
way to us by now?"
"Yes. Unless he is hurt. Unless he cannot."
It was as though a rock had been dropped
into Umak's gut. He had thought of his brother's
absence only in terms of life and death. It had not
occurred to him that Manaravak might be hurt and lying
helpless somewhere.
"Tell the others where I have gone, my son. In the
meantime, make what "magic" you can for Larani.
Naya may be able to help you. I know she's a
light-witted, scatterbrained
little creature, but like her grandmother Wallah, she has
always taken an interest in the healing ways."
"I ... yes ... I will talk to Naya."
"And ask Father Above and Mother Below to smile upon this
man so that I may return with the one who is lost!"
"Granddaughter of Grek ..."
Startled by Eneela's whisper, Naya
raised her head. She was still sitting cross-legged
beside the fitfully sleeping Larani. Her neck
ached, and her back felt sore. How long had she
been asleep? When she had dozed off, Umak's
chanting had filled the night air. He was not chanting
now.
It was very dark within the little lean-to. The stink of
Larani's burns was all-pervasive. Naya
willed herself not to be bothered by it.
"Listen ..." Eneela's voice was barely
audible. "The beasts are closer now. Do you hear
them? Demmi has disappeared, and Dak has gone
after her." She shuddered.
Naya listened. Wolves were singing in the distant
hills across the river. They sounded like lost and lonely
men . . . like hunters for from camp with no way of
returning home again. The thought made her cringe.
Manaravak is out there somewhere, too . . . if there
is anything of him left to be found!
Something else was howling now. With the sound came the
recollection of her sighting of the wanawut disappearing
into the black smoke of the burning land.
Eneela shivered. "It will be dawn soon," her
whispering continued. "The wolves and wanawut will
seek their lairs. Go now, Little Girl.
You, too, must rest."
"I would rather stay with Larani. lana is not happy with
me."
"I will tend to Larani now. Thanks to you, we have
both slept. Wallah would smile if she could see
how much her granddaughter had learned from her. The
shaman Karana would be proud to know of his daughter's
healing ways. May the forces of Creation smile upon
you, Little Girl, in gratitude for your compassionate
heart and your gentle hands."
"I do not deserve your gratitude, Eneela." It
was not compassion but guilt that had forced her to tend
Larani's burns. It was dark enough to prevent
Eneela from seeing the truth in her eyes, but it could
never be dark enough to hide it from herself. lana had been
right. Everything bad that had happened was her fault.
As long as Naya lived, Larani's burns
would be etched into her memory, for she was responsible
for them.
She could not breathe. Her heart was pounding. With a sob,
she scooted forward on her knees and in a moment was
outside the shelter standing shakily beneath the light of
stars that was fading with the dawn. The wolves and
wanawut were silent now. She snuffled as she
walked not toward Grek's lean-to but
toward the nearby riverbank. She reached the river's
edge and paused to stare down at the water.
"Naya? Why are you crying?"
She gasped, startled. She looked up to see
Umak standing beside her, in silhouette against the
hills.
"Are you all right, Naya?"
The words that followed burst from her throat in a
torrent of emotion that took them both off guard.
"I am sorry, Umak!" she cried, and threw her
arms around him.
"Sorry?"
"For everything! For all that has happened. Ever since
I fell behind Grek and the others as they walked to the
lake, everything has gone wrong. Oh, Umak, it
was
I the great bear was following, and it was because of me that-was
"You could not have known that the bear was there."
"No." She closed her eyes and rested the side of
her face against his chest. His breast was bare and warm
against her cheek. She pressed closer and felt his
arms enfold her and draw her nearer still. It was good
to be in Umak's embrace- steadying, calming.
"You are very often thoughtless and careless, but if you have
learned from your last mistake, then we will
all be served by it."
"I have learned, Umak. You'll see. You won't
have to watch me again."
"It is no trouble to look out for you, Naya. I will
always be there for you. Why did you fall behind, Little
Girl?"
"To string pretty berries for a necklet. I thought
that they were craneberries, but they weren't, and once
they were strung, I just wanted to stand alone beneath the sun
... to dance, to laugh, and then-was Her eyes opened.
"And then I thought terrible thoughts that must have angered
Father Above. Oh, Umak, I am so sorry!"
"I know, I know." He moved slowly, rocking
her, holding her more tightly. "We are all
sorry. But truly, you cannot
blame yourself. The signs and the omens have been bad for
this people for a long time now."
She sniffled again. Could he be right? Of course he
could. Umak was Shaman! A wan smile tugged at
the corners of her mouth. "Umak does not think that it
is all Naya's fault, then?"
"Umak doubts very much if either Father Above or Mother
Below could ever be so angry at the granddaughter of
Grek."
"And is Umak angry at Naya?"
"Naya fills my heart with many things, but anger is
not one of them."
She hugged him hard. "I am glad. Oh,
Umak, tell me what to do to make the spirits smile.
What can I do to make Manaravak come home again?
If he does not return, who will be man for me?"
He stopped moving. She felt his heartbeat quicken.
"I will be your man," he said.
"Oh, Umak!" she exclaimed in amazement, and
once again she hugged him. This time she nuzzled his
chest and kissed his bare skin in gratitude for his
expression of kindness. She liked the feel of a
man's arms and the warmth of a man's breath blowing
softly across her scalp, and most especially she
liked the sound of her name as a man exhaled it as a
loving whisper. "I
will
be a woman soon. When Manaravak comes back,
you must make him ask for me! Oh, Umak, he is
the most beautiful man. At his fire, this girl
will
be a woman!"
The change in Umak was instantaneous. Tension
filled his body.
"The dawn is rising, Little Girl, and you
must go to the lean-to of your grandfather. When Torka
returns, we will leave this place-with or without the one
who is lost."
Beneath the cold light of a scar-faced moon, Demmi
walked determinedly upriver without looking back.
Dak would be furious when he discovered that she had
left the encampment, but she did not care. Her spear
was gripped in her hand, and her bola was wound around her
brow, but prickles of dread ran up her spine.
She knew she must find Torka if she was to stay
alive long enough to locate her brother. She gritted
her teeth when she recalled her brother's chanting in
the miserable camp of lean-tos.
"Chant all you want to, Umak! That will not bring
our brother home! If my Manaravak lives,
Torka and I will find him."
But where was Torka? Suddenly disoriented in the
acrid fog that lay upon the land, Demmi paused,
aware of the feeling of being watched.
She peered through the swirling vapors of the thick,
foul-smelling ground fog that enveloped her. It had
formed so slowly at first, oozing out of the charred,
rain-saturated earth to grow thicker and thicker
until now it confounded her every step.
"Manaravak! Where are you? Father! Can
anyone hear me?" The fog absorbed her words.
Totally lost, she realized that the river must have forked
and that she had followed an unfamiliar tributary
into even more unfamiliar country.
"Hmmph!" She snorted bravely, attempting
to shrug her fears away. How could anything, man or
beast, be watching her in this fog? She could barely
see herself in it!
Nevertheless, the sinew-wrapped haft of her stone
dagger was gripped tightly within her left hand, and her
favorite throwing spear was balanced in her right. She
turned slowly, trying to remember the last time she
had been out upon the land alone and unable to find her
bearings.
"Never," she hissed through clenched teeth. She was
never alone; she was always with the band, or with Dak, or
with her father and the other hunters ... or with
Manaravak.
"Fog spirits that walk the night, can you not let this
woman see a little?"
And then she caught her breath, amazed, for in that very
moment a soft wind stirred, and the fog shifted and
seemed to grow lighter. She laughed aloud with
pleasure and relief. She raised her arms and
shouted for joy.
But with the lifting of the fog, she was able to see the thing
watching her . . . the thing that had been following her.
A scream lodged in her throat-she was too
terrified to release it. Instead she hurled her
spear, but even as it flew she could not bring herself
to speak the name of the thing that stood before her: wanawut.
It was cold and damp and completely dark inside the
cave. Sounds from the outside world filtered through the
blocked entrance and through the flesh of the earth itself. . .
of wind and flame, of pounding rain and flood, of death
. . . until now.
Now there was no sound at all for Manaravak,
except for the increasingly shallow exhalations of his own
breath. He lay very still, curled on his side with his
arms wrapped tightly about his knees to keep himself from
shivering while his large, dark eyes stared straight
ahead into blackness. He was dying. He accepted it.
He had gone beyond thirst, beyond hunger, beyond caring. His
hands and shoulders were raw as a result of attempting
to dig and lever his way through the debris of stone that
littered the cave's entrance. He had given up
wondering what had happened to the hare. Perhaps it was
trapped as he was trapped, dying in some deeper
portion of the cave, alone and frightened. Had it
attempted to backtrack past him, he would
have grabbed it and sucked it dry of blood.
Thinking of moisture, he salivated. His throat
hurt from calling out to his father and brother for help.
No one had heard him except the dire wolves that
prowled the world above. He held his breath, listening.
He knew that he must be very near the entrance to the cave
because he could hear the wolves coming close again.
His heartbeat quickened. He could smell them! The
cold, heavy night air was settling out of the sky
to carry their scent downward through openings between the fallen
stones.
They were sniffing out the smell of him, whining to one
another and briefly digging before snorting in
boredom, urinating, and then walking away.
"Wait! Do not go! Do not leave me!" In
desperation, he yapped and howled and made all the
wolf sounds he knew in hope of calling them
back, but the sound of their padded paws ceased to be a
weight upon the world, and he knew that they had gone their
way.
Weeping, he howled in frustration and named himself a
fool. Even if the wolves had managed to loosen
the stones and dug their way into the cave, he did not
know if they would have greeted a brother or claimed a
ready meal. He would not have cared; either way
he would gladly have dealt with them, for as he breathed in
the hot stink of their urine, he knew that it was the
smell of life.
Panic leaped within his bones. Snarling and growling,
he tried once more to dig himself free. It was no
good. The flesh of his fingers was worn through to the bone.
Exhausted and bloodied, he lay still and cried like a
baby until he fell asleep. But in sleep there
was no rest, no peace, for he dreamed of fire and
flood and death. He saw his people perishing in the
flames, and with them the dogs and the horse and the great
bear-and the beast wanawut. It thumped upon a
massive chest as it called his name.
"Manaravak!"
He awoke. Listened. There was nothing but the sound of
his own breath and heartbeat and the sibilance of the river.
Even the wolves were silent now. He lay still. And
although his eyes were open-in the way of an animal-he
somehow slept and dreamed again and made low, hurtful
whimperings in his throat as, somewhere beyond the
stone-occluded entrance to the cave, a dog barked and a
man called his name; but Manaravak walked with the
wanawut in his dreams and did not answer.
For all of a day and a night, Torka had walked
upstream through the burned and ruined land.
Twice he became lost when the river forked, then
twisted back upon itself. There was no sign of
Manaravak. Again and again he called his name. There was
no answer except from the wolves.
He charged at every gathering of carrion-eating birds
that he came across, shouting and shaking his spear at them
as they feasted upon the dead. Bloody-beaked and
squawking in confusion at his audacity, they hopped
away or whipped
their wings threateningly but always allowed him the view he
sought . . . never the one he feared.
He went on and on. At last he reached the place
where the shallows should have been. Had it not been for the
contours of the scorched and steaming hills, it would have been
impossible to recognize the place. Staring to the other
side, he looked for the conical huts of his people, but where
there had once been a meticulously assembled
cluster of well-made shelters, there was only a
burned and smoking plain stretching and rolling away
to the hills and to distant ice-mantled ranges. It
was as if the encampment had never existed. It took
him a moment to accept the fact, but at length he
nodded, acknowledging the harshness of the truth.
"Manaravak!" Again and again and again he called the name
of his son, until the rapid movement of a
hare caused him to look down.
The little animal darted suddenly from beneath a mound of
blackened rubble close to his feet. As Torka
bent to take a. closer look at the debris, a
rush of emotion nearly staggered him. He was
completely amazed to realize that beneath an overlaying of
thick, rain-congealed ash was a sizable pile of
scorched tools as well as the long bones the People
used as their huts' wall braces and ridge beams.
Briefly, he looked for other bones-the bones of his
son-and nearly wept with relief when he found none.
So Manaravak
had
reached the encampment and managed to bring his people's
belongings across the water! But where was he now?
The charred, oblong shape of Lonit's favorite
cooking lamp caught his eye. With a start, he
realized that he was kneeling beside blackened remains from
his own hut. Gone were the many bladder flasks of
precious oil and the fermented brew of summer's end.
Gone were the lengths of scoured intestine packed tight
with pounded fat and the stacks of pain-eating willow
leaves and the sprigs of healing artemisia. Ruined and
brittle were Lonit's fishing trident, fur comber,
antler straightener, and the lightweight,
perfectly balanced bow drill with which she had kindled
many a cooking fire.
His eyes strayed again to the soapstone lamp. He
lifted it and was not surprised when a portion of it
cracked away in his hand. The lamp had been broken
long before the fire. Torka smiled, touched
by memories. Of all of her belongings, Lonit
treasured this lamp the most. It was one of the first
things that he had ever made for her. In its light
Torka's little ones had learned the history and ways
of the P. He closed his eyes and drew the lamp
closer. Given the extent of the crack along its
side, he did not know why the vessel had not
exploded into numerous unsalvageable pieces.
Perhaps Fire, Daughter of the Sky, was not such a
merciless creature after all.
The sound of a barking dog caused Torka's
memories to collapse. He was suddenly an aging
man holding an old lamp, remembering the past when
he should be looking for his lost son. He opened his
eyes and, still holding the lamp, stared across the ruined
land. He cupped a hand around his mouth and called his
son's name.
"Manaravak!"
And this time he had an answer. It was not
what he expected. It was Demmi's scream that had
him running downriver with his spear in one hand, the
lamp in the other, and his heart in his throat.
Standing upright before Demmi in the fog, the wanawut
looked like a huge, stump-legged, slouch-shouldered
man. It watched her out of small gray eyes that
glinted like polished pebbles above a long,
cylindrical snout.
She saw it all in an instant: the massive
musculature of its furred body, the shaggy mane
bristling along its upper back and shoulders, the
short, thick neck, and the arms that were nearly as long
as the beast was tall, so that the knuckles of its
clawed-and hairy hands rested on the ground. And its
face: the projecting brow ridge humping up out of the
sloping, flattened cranium; the pointed, yet
grotesquely manlike ears set low at the side
of its head; the wide, flaring, hairless nostrils;
the broad-lipped mouth that was pulled back to reveal
canines as broad and long as a lion's as it
extended its head and drew in her scent.
It was in this moment that Demmi screamed. She threw
her spear with all of her considerable strength, but the
fog congealed, and the beast was lost to view. She heard
a huff of surprise followed by the
scuffling of feet and an angry exhalation.
Breathless and afraid to advance, she stood her
ground, certain that she had struck the beast. But had
she killed it? She loosed her bola, armed it with
stones from a small bag at her belt, and held the
weapon at ready. Dry-mouthed, she
heard it moving in the fog, breathing hard, and sucking
air through its teeth. She felt sick. It was
riled, and it was coming for her.
She took a step back and whirled the bola. Around
and around hissed the thong arms and then, just as she loosed
the stones with deadly force, she shrieked and nearly
fainted because the thing that emerged from the fog was not the
wanawut but Dak, storming toward her with her spear
in his hand.
He threw himself to the muddied earth as the
projectiles from her bola barely missed his
skull.
"Dak? Is that
you,
Dak?" Completely confused, she watched him get
to his feet and angrily wipe mud from his face and
garments. Where was the wanawut?
"Didn't you hear me calling you?" he shouted.
"Why didn't you answer?"
"I ..." She frowned. "Where is . .
"Where is
what?"
snapped Dak, spitting mud.
She looked directly at him and formed the word
wanawut
with her lips without speaking it aloud. "It was following
me."
He made a rude noise of derision. "Nothing
has been following you except this man!"
Had she been so frightened that she had not known the face
and form of her own man? As she appraised his
broad, muddied, somewhat crookedly assembled
face, she was amazed to realize just how much that face
meant to her. What had changed her feelings toward
him? She frowned. Odd . . . she could not say.
"I am sorry. I did not mean to. ..." She
stopped. Her voice surprised her. It had sounded
so tender, so caring, so full of loving regret. She
saw the defensive look in Dak's eyes turn
into a look of love and gladness to have found affection in
her once again. She stiffened. She did not want
to be affectionate toward Dak. Not now. Perhaps never
again. Manaravak might be dead; and if this were true,
then she would never love anyone again.
"You should not have followed me," she said coldly.
His expression became purely defensive again.
"Had I not, you would have said that Dak was not man enough
to find his woman and bring her safely back to camp
when she was lost."
"I am
not
lost!" The lie embarrassed her. She looked
around. "At least not anymore."
His eyes narrowed, but he spoke kindly. "I will
help you."
"I do not want your help!"
It occurred to her that she was being obstinate and
foolish. Dak was a fine tracker, so she stood a
better chance of finding her father and brother with him at
her side. She closed her eyes, conjured a vision
of her lost brother, and held it tight and safely
captive beneath her lids.
He must be found! By all the spirits of this world and the
next, let me find him alive!
"Demmi?"
She kept her eyes tightly closed, refusing
to allow Dak to intrude into her thoughts of
Manaravak.
"Demmi!"
She opened her eyes and glared at him. It was all
that she could do to keep herself from striking him for having
interrupted her silent prayer to the forces of Creation
on Manaravak's behalf.
"Are you all right?" Gently he drew her closer.
"No!" She held her ground; she would not be drawn
nearer to him. "I am
not
all right!" She slapped his hands away. "Until
I have my brother by my side again, I will never be
all right." She did not regret the words or the
obvious pain that they caused him. "What are you staring
at? Go back to camp, Dak. Kharn must have
missed you by now. Coddle
him,
not me! You make a better mother than I do."
Dak's eyes went wide, then narrowed as he tried
in vain to prevent the anger within them from spilling out.
He snarled like a riled wolf, grabbed her wrists,
and took her down. He straddled her, pinned her
flat on her back, and held her pinioned. "You
are my woman!"
A perversity of emotions flooded her, leaving her
breathless with pride that he was her man and that he cared
enough to come after her . . . and yet she could not
help snarling back at him, wanting to hurt him.
"In another band I would not be your woman! In
another band there would have been more men to choose from and I
would have chosen another."
He struck her, causing her to cry out as pain flared
within her skull and a wide, expanding dizziness carried
her away into momentary unconsciousness. Stunned and
immobile, she heard the high, excited barking of a
dog coming
closer and closer as she awoke-not in pain-but to a
kiss. It was a deep, slow, probing kiss of
love and passion, and somewhere beyond her consciousness Dak
murmured through the kiss.
"I'm sorry, Demmi. I'm sorry."
Her mind filled with the image of the one she loved as
she returned the kiss without restraint, moving her
body and arching upward against the warmth of the man who
lay over her. Half in a dream, she whispered,
"Manaravak ..."
Dak broke his kiss and drew back. He struck
Demmi hard across the face with his open hand and would have
struck her again, this time a backhanded blow that might
well have broken her jaw had Torka not intervened.
"Stop! Stop this at once!" Throwing aside his
weapons and the lamp, Torka grasped the
scruff of Dak's hunting tunic and pulled the young
man off Demmi.
Dak did not resist. He stood limp armed,
glaring down at his woman as he wiped the bitterness
of her kiss from his mouth.
Torka eyed them sternly. "I heard my daughter
scream and thought she was being attacked by a beast. And
here, after running all this way, I find that it is
only you!"
"He
is
a beast!" Demmi declared, rising to her feet as she
touched her face with cautious fingers, moving her jaw
tentatively, as though uncertain that it was still in working
order.
Dak's face was set and hard. He allowed her
accusation to settle without framing an argument in his
defense.
"Why are you here?" Torka demanded of his daughter.
"I did not give you permission to leave the others."
"Nor did you deny it," she said, wincing against the
pain in her jaw.
"I left camp before you could have asked. My action was
statement enough that this was a trek that I wished to make
alone."
"I had to come, Father. I had to!"
"No, Demmi," Torka said coldly. "You did
not have to come. Your first responsibility is to your child
and-was
"Nothing and no one is more important to her than
Manaravak," Dak interrupted.
Torka was unsettled. The young woman's need
to find her brother had become an obsession.
True, there had always been an inordinately deep
bond of affection and understanding
between the siblings. But now, as he focused upon the
fixed and fiery look of resolution in Demmi's
eyes, he wondered if it was a good thing for a woman
to put her love for a brother above her love for her child
and her man.
Torka was not given the time to pursue the subject.
Dogs were barking up-country. He had heard them
before, while racing to respond to Demmi's scream,
and he had thought:
Manaravak lives, he might be with the dogs!
The dogs were close now and getting closer.
Suddenly, as though from nowhere, a hare with scorched
ears burst from the cover of a nearby grove of
burned, semiflattened willows to run for its life
across the land. Startled, Torka
recognized the animal just as two dogs broke through
the same thicket, scattering ashes and blackened,
brittle stalks in all directions as they pursued
the hare downriver.
Torka's heart sank. Manaravak was not with them.
Snow Eater raced on after the hare without looking
back. But Companion stopped, turned, and lowered his
great wolflike head in puzzlement as he met
Torka's gaze and let loose a single yarf that
seemed to say quite clearly: "Follow!"
They followed the dog, the dogs followed the hare,
and the hare led them to the one who was lost.
It was no easy thing to dig Manaravak from the cave,
but dig they did, and when at last they found him, he
lay delirious, making the low, mewling sounds of an
animal. The hare with the scorched ears lay panting
upon his chest, and even when they drew him out of the cave
into the light of day, the animal made no move
to run away and the dogs did not harry it. It lay
passive and exhausted upon the man.
Kneeling beside her brother, Demmi touched
Manaravak's face and the backs of his hands with
tenderly questing fingertips; he was burned but not
badly-just enough to rouse pain and cause him to moan.
She withdrew her hand and kissed
Manaravak's brow as Dak looked on jealously.
The moment was sacred to Torka. "The little one with the
burned ears is Manaravak's helping spirit," he
intoned. "The first time I saw this hare, it showed me
where Manaravak had been. The second time, it
risked its life to show me where he was. Now it
stays with him as though it were his brother. When he is
well again, the hare will leave him. You will see-it will be
so."
Dak smiled, but there was no humor in his eyes as
he said caustically, "My father taught me that in the
far country a man sometimes had several helping spirits
in his lifetime. I would guess that up to now,
Manaravak's has been the beast wanawut. Now
there's a fitting totem for him: half man, half
animal."
"Watch what you say of my son, Dak!" Torka
shook his head with paternal admonition. "You are
hopeless, both of you! Lend a hand now, before you wear
each other away with your constant bickering, and I have
no one left but the dogs to help me bring my son
home!"
Umak stood with his sisters Summer Moon and
Swan before the shelter of the headman. He saw
Naya running toward him, and instinctively
he reached out for her.
She flung herself against him. "Oh, Umak, thank
you for being such a wonderful shaman! Thank you for
asking the forces of Creation not to be angry with this
silly girl! Thank you for making Manaravak
safe!"
With one little hand splayed upon his chest, she stood on
tiptoe, planted a quick, hard kiss on his chin,
then pushed back from him. With the bladder flask of
healing oil dangling from her free hand, she was
suddenly on her knees and scooting forward to disappear
into the lean-to of the headman's family without asking
welcome of them.
"Silly girl," muttered Swan dourly.
Dizzied by her display of affection, Umak thought
almost blissfully: Yes,
she is silly. But she is also so adorable that
Torka, Lonit, and Manaravak will not be able
to send her away any more than I could.
Swan rolled her eyes. "Only Naya could get
away with barging in, uninvited. Our father should send
her scuttling back outside with a good scolding."
"Torka will scold no one on the night that he has
brought Manaravak back to the People," said Summer
Moon evenly. "Besides, Naya will be our
brother's woman soon. She as
sumes that she has the right to take certain liberties
with manners and tradition."
"She behaves with the carelessness of a spoiled child," said
Swan hotly of her lifelong friend. "What is
happening in this band, anyway? Demmi obeys no
one but her own whims! Naya does as she pleases!
Has Torka not taught us all that the good of the band
must always be considered if the People are to survive?"
Umak was startled by the unexpected passion of young
Swan's outburst. "Yes. Torka has taught
us this."
She nodded, pleased with his affirmation. "Then isn't
it time that someone reminded Naya that she is not
exempt from this teaching? For her own sake and for the sake
of Manaravak, I will talk to Naya."
Summer Moon's right eyebrow arched upward as she
looked at her younger sister speculatively. "Will
you also talk to Demmi for Dak's sake?"
"I ..." the girl stammered.
Umak shot a look at Summer Moon. Her
teasing had obviously wounded a tender portion of their
younger sister's heart. Swan . . . and Dak?
Swan's head went high. "Demmi does not care
about him."
Summer Moon smiled in the slow, secret way of
mature women when they listen to the voice of youth,
innocence, and naivete. "Do not be so certain, little
sister. Besides, when Naya becomes a woman, all
she will need to cure her impetuosity is a strong and
steady man."
"Manaravak is more impetuous than she is,"
countered Swan.
"Yes," agreed Summer Moon, and looked
directly at Umak. "He is."
It was as though her spirit saw into his. He resented the
intrusion and bristled against it. "Naya will listen
to Manaravak when he is her man," Umak told
his sister, hating that she smiled at him in the same
benign, all-knowing way that she had just smiled at
Swan.
But more than this, he hated the way that his mouth turned
down when he spoke the words. Manaravak was his
brother. His heart had soared with gladness when
Torka and Demmi and Dak had brought him home .
. . until Naya had come running to his arms.
"Oh, Manaravak! You are alive!" Naya was a
small, breathless form leaning close.
He was puzzled by her words-a statement of the obvious,
completely irrelevant. Of course he
was alive! If he were not, would his eyes be open and
would his breath be causing his chest to rise and fall beneath
the sleeping form of the hare? But like all of his people,
Naya had need of words at a time when he could see
no use for them. Had it been anyone else leaning
over him, Manaravak would probably not have spoken.
But her face was so small and lovely that he said.
"I am alive."
She smiled and sighed with pleasure. "Oh,
Manaravak, I am so glad that you are alive! I
am so glad that you have come back to us!"
Naya's repetition of so many useless words both
wearied and irked him. Of course he was alive! Of
course she was glad! All his people were glad! He had
been glad, too; but his gladness had shriveled
away the moment he had come from the cave and had seen
again all the dead and dying animals. He closed his
eyes. He remembered the dead leaping cat, the dying
caribou calf, and the screaming horse leaping to its death
with its body and mane afire. He remembered the
animals that had been swept away by the raging
river. Manaravak thought of the wanawut that had
raised him, and a terrible loneliness overwhelmed him as
he wondered if any of its kind had survived the
wrath of Daughter of the Sky.
Beneath the protective cup of his palm, the little hare
stirred and sighed erratically as it lay upon his chest.
His fingers flexed, stroked the slender back, and
felt the hard, rapid, arrhythmic beat of the
animal's heart pounding within the meager protection of
its rib cage.
"Listen to the way it breathes. It's sick. You should
kill it."
Startled, Manaravak opened his eyes and looked up
to see that Sayanah had come to peer at the hare over
Naya's shoulder.
"I would not kill you if you were sick," responded
Manaravak.
"Of course not. I am your brother!"
"All of the living creatures of this world are my
brothers, Sayanah," he said; then, as he looked
at his brother, he wondered if a man who had been
raised among animals could ever be anything but an
animal.
Sayanah's forehead furrowed in thought. "Yes. But
that hare is suffering. You should kill it out of kindness."
"No!" cried Naya.
To Manaravak's surprise, the girl reached out,
took the animal into her hands, and drew it close
against her breast. "I will heal your brother,
Manaravak," she whispered passionately. "I will
make your helping spirit well again so that the spirit of my
man will be strong!"
He frowned; he had forgotten that she was to be his.
As he observed her tenderly stroking the hare and
cooing softly to it, the darkness left his mood. She
was such a pretty girl. The sun was shining within his
memories, and a small, golden girl ran wild
and naked across the pathways of the past . . . toward the
future that warmed his loins and made him smile.
Naya would soon be a woman. His woman. Thinking
of this, Manaravak was glad to be a man.
No one saw the lions that circled the camp in the
rising mists that dawn, but they could smell and hear them
prowling close until the hunters' shouts caused the
beasts to move off snarling.
"They are still close," said Grek.
"Close enough to be a danger to anyone who strays from
camp," confirmed Simu.
The headman did not flinch. "We can stay no more in
this country."
There was more plea than suggestion in Grek's weary
voice as he spoke against moving on. "We could
hunt these lions. We could eat of their meat and rest
while we grow strong and-was
"No, old friend," Torka told him. "Our
hunters are few. I will not risk you or any other
man or boy against lions. We have meat enough to see us
through as we break camp and travel to the east. We
may find the great mammoth totem- and our luck
again-in a land that has not been slain by Daughter of the
Sky."
In the days that followed, Torka led his people due
east, away from the river and across the ruined land. They
transported Larani on a sledge made of hide
that was stretched across the long bones of a camel.
Companion walked easily in the braces, pulling
the girl as though she were no burden at all, while
the much smaller Snow Eater trotted at his side.
The People trudged on with the tightly rolled hide
coverings of their lean-tos secured to pack frames
that were contrived of the same bones that supported the little
shelters whenever they made camp . . . which was often,
for after the second day the weather changed, and the sky
bled a cold, intermittent rain that made traveling
miserable.
Nevertheless, Torka kept them moving from one damp,
foul-smelling camp to another in the hope of finding
game and fresh meat. On and on they walked,
looking for a land that had not been ravaged
by fire, until it seemed that the entire world had been
burned and all of its living creatures had died
except for them and the carrion eaters of the sky.
The landscape changed. The grasslands narrowed and
tunneled through low, shouldering hills. Distance
slipped away, but beneath the feet of the travelers, the
skin of Mother Below remained charred and blackened.
Lying upon her sledge, Larani looked upon the world and
then closed her unbandaged eye as she wept. "Oh,
look at it. It looks like me," she whispered her
grief. "Why has Spirit Sucker left me
alive?"
"There is already too much death in this land!"
Manaravak snarled.
He startled her. When had he come to walk at the
side of her sledge with Naya?
"Manaravak has come to see how you are feeling,
Larani," Naya told her. "Look: His burns
are nearly all healed, and I have healed the hare that
he carries. Soon you will be well again. You will
see."
Larani saw only one thing-and that was Manaravak.
Even in her pain and despair, her heartbeat
quickened. But now her heart stopped, then half leaped
out of her chest as, without warning, he reached
down and drew aside the oil-moistened buckskin
cloth that covered the burned side of her face and
head.
"No!" she screamed. "Do not look at me!"
It was too late. He had looked. He had seen.
And as his
long, fine mouth drew back in open horror and
revulsion at the sight of her, Larani snatched the
buckskin bandage back over her head and knew that the
pain of her burns had been nothing to the agony that her
spirit felt now.
That night Manaravak sought solitude beneath the
wide, cold, compassionless vault of a clouded sky.
If there was a moon, he could not see it. If there were
stars, their light was dulled by the clouds. He knelt
in a low, whispering wind, hunkering on the balls of
his feet. With the tip of the first finger of his right hand he
began to incise points and circles into the charred,
blackened surface of the earth- points to represent
the stars, a circle for the moon. He stopped. He
stared down.
There!
he thought, satisfied with his work. He had saved the
stars and the moon from being digested by the carnivorous
earth! Or had he? He looked up again.
Clouds still concealed the sky; he would have to wait
until the wind carried them away before he would know for
sure if the stars and moon were still there.
He could still remember sitting naked as a child on the
broad, bone-littered floor of the wanawut's
fireless cave, sounding happily to himself as he made
his drawings. The beast wanawut had not approved of
this. She had screeched at him and had sent him to his
corner whenever she caught him at it, and then she would
sniff and show her teeth at his markings, pound at them
with her fists, rub them out with her feet, and
defecate upon those that she could not erase in any other
way.
Nevertheless, a need was a need, and Manaravak knew
that his mood had always been soothed when he carved or
traced images in the surface of the earth. Except
tonight, because the earth was dead. No markings in the skin of
Mother Below would change this, nor would they restore the
ruined face of the girl Larani.
He trembled, not only with revulsion but with pity as
he thought of her.
"Why?" he asked the pitiless night. "Why?"
There was no answer.
Like a gutted wolf, he threw back his head and
howled his rage at the cold, lifeless,
compassionless forces of the infinite.
In the lean-to that she shared with Dak and Kharn,
Demmi awoke with a start. Dry-mouthed and breathless
with panic, she came up out of her dream and for a moment
thought that it was the howling of the beast wanawut that had
awakened her.
The moment passed. The nightmare images vanished.
She lay still, listening, relieved when she realized that
it was only a wolf until she caught her breath and
knew that it was her brother. She started to rise.
"Where are you going?" Dak demanded, pulling her
back.
"To Manaravak. Listen to him. He needs me."
"Go back to sleep. Let Torka or Lonit,
or the girl who is to be his woman go out to him if
someone is to give him comfort."
"But I-was
"You will do as I say, Demmi. Or by all the
powers of this world and the next, this time I
will
break your jaw!"
Naya was up and out of Grek's lean-to and on her
way to Manaravak before the old man or his woman
could tell her to stay, but Lonit was already returning
from Manaravak's side and intercepted her.
"No, Little Girl. He would be alone. Sometimes
comfort cannot be given. Sometimes sadness demands release
through solitude. Since he has come to live among
his people, this has been the way and the need of Manaravak.
We must let the wolf in his spirit speak. Perhaps,
by releasing its voice, he will eventually let it go."
The next day, Torka led his people on. They searched
for game and found none, although now and again they heard the
distant sound of elk in rut-the crack of antlers
clashing, the high, ear-piercing, whistling screams of
stags in the full battle frenzy of the mating
season.
"How can they think of mating in a land like this?" asked
Dak as he paused and leaned forward to ease the
burden of his pack. He was surprised to find himself
longing for the first hard freeze of winter that would make
tracking and traveling easier.
Demmi glared at him, wanting him to see the
resentment that had been building in her since the
previous night. "How could
you
think of mating in a land like this?"
He glared back at her with equal resentment.
"Manaravak
is not the only man in this band to have need of
your comfort, Demmi! He may need a sister's
solace now and again, but as your man I need more than
that from you."
Standing beside them, Swan blushed in embarrassment and,
wanting no part of their argument, called out for Summer
Moon and Sayanah to wait for her and hurried on.
"Mating is good in any land!" Lonit declared. She
had left-brace alien back to relieve Demmi
and Dak of her grandson for a while. Kharn clung
to her side with his legs about her waist and his hands
grasping the shoulder thongs that secured her pack
frame to her back. She turned her head and gave
the toddler a resounding kiss, then looked squarely
at Demmi and Dak. "Mating is especially good
in a land like this! It is proof that the living things of this
world-including you two- still believe in their future!"
"Hmmph! That is what
you
think!" exclaimed Demmi, stalking off after Swan
with her nose in the air and her lips set into a
scowl.
Dak's expression of belligerence melted. He
looked sick with hurt and disappointment as he stared
after her.
Lonit measured him thoughtfully. "You should
let her see that look once in a while, Dak,
instead of shouting and glowering at her all the time."
He willed the look from his face. "I do not shout!"
he shouted. "I do not glower!" he said, glowering.
"Besides, when I took Demmi as my woman, you
advised me to be forceful with her!"
"I told you to be forceful. I did not tell you to
use
force. No woman will long smile upon the man who
strikes her."
"Demmi does not smile at me at all."
"Why?"
"I don't know!"
"Find out. Look
at
her with love-with an expression that says she is your
woman and the mother of your son, and no matter what
happens or what may be troubling her, your lives
are one. And because you love her, you will not allow her
to make your future together less than a good thing!"
That night the dogs were restless and the children were fretful.
Wanawut howled with wolves, and Manaravak howled
back. Umak painted his face with ash and mud and
made supplications to the forces of Creation on
behalf of his peoples'
need for fresh meat as they ate of their dwindling,
increasingly putrid provisions.
That night the headman dreamed of mammoth and awoke
to hear them thundering in the distant mountain passes to the
east. He rose, pulled his sleeping skin around his
shoulders, and went out into the dawn.
A storm had left the blackened earth covered with a
thin, dry dusting of snow that would be gone before the
morning; both land and sky were still too warm to hold
snow captive. He stared eastward. The wind had
blown itself out over the distant ranges. With the sun
rising behind them, they seemed like a great,
snaggle-toothed, impenetrable black wall. He
stared. Again the sound of trumpeting mammoth reached
him.
Lonit came out to stand beside him, breathless with
excitement.
"Did you hear?" he asked her.
"Yes! Was it Life Giver, do you think?"
"It was
mammothl
And where mammoth graze, there will be grass and
spruce wood. And where there is spruce wood and
good grazing, there will be meat!"
A pass through the mountains opened before them.
It was a dark, forbidding, hungry, and sleepless
passage, but at length the mountains fell away.
The bulk of the great range elbowed southward as
Torka led his people east across high, open, rolling
hill country-but still the surface of the land remained
blackened by fire.
Over the next few days circling teratorns
occasionally guided them to carcasses that still possessed
enough gristle to invite the predation of carrion-eating
birds. The women and girls got close enough to brain
a few small birds with stones loosed from their
bolas, and three times in as many days the men of the band
speared larger quarry, and the heartened people shared the meat
of eagles and a teratorn.
They thanked the spirits of their kills and the circling
teratorns that had led them to their little feasts. They
saved the hollow bones and feathers, for these were sacred
things that linked the people with the spirits of the sky and to their
ancestors who walked the wind forever.
But in a band of twenty-four people, the flesh and blood
of birds did not go far. They lived off the meat that
they had prepared and packed for traveling in those first
days after the
fire when the flesh of the corpses that they had found
along the river's edge was still fresh. But the
meat had been prepared quickly in the sodden days of little
wind and no sun in which to dry it properly, and had
thus not kept well. It had transcended the tang
of rancidity and the cloying sweetness of mild
spoilage to grow soft and ripe with a stench that appealed
to only the most tolerant palates.
"Eat, eat!" Grek urged his woman and children
enthusiastically as they settled in to a family meal
at day's end under a carelessly assembled lean-to of
his devising. "Why do you make such faces at your
food? In the far country, this man Grek has seen
men and women draw lots to win such well-aged meat
as this!" He smacked his lips appreciatively as
he gulped a wedge of putrid fat and followed it
down with a strip of something that had once been a filet
of red meat; it was blue now and so far gone with
decomposition that it looked as though digestive
juices had already been at work on it.
"You make a joke, yes?" Chuk's face was
contorted with revulsion.
"No joke! It is good meat, yes!"
"It smells bad, Bison Man," whimpered
Yona, wrinkling her nose.
"It stinks!" proclaimed Tankh, dubiously
eyeing the skewered lumps of greening fat that
his mother lana proffered to him.
"It is the best we have," she told him.
"We could eat the dogs," suggested Tankh.
lana struck him so hard that he fell sideways with
his nose spurting blood. "The people of Torka do not
eat dogs!"
lana's face was flushed as she shouted at him, but
she had already set down the skewer of fat and was
kneeling next to her son, helping him up, checking
to see what damage she had done.
Tankh sat up, touching his nose, then stared at his
bloody fingertips and shook his head to clear it.
"Why? We do not name them totem."
lana took up the edge of her skirt and, ignoring
his protests, wiped his face. "The dogs that walk
with us are the children of Aar. Since the days of
Torka's grandfather, old Umak, they have carried our
loads and have hunted at our sides across greater
distances than a woman of my age cares
to remember. Men of many bands have called us magic
makers because of our dogs-perhaps they were right. When
Three Paws came to feed upon the women and children at
the lake, who was the first to race to the attack? The
dogs. When the helping spirit led the headman to his
lost son, Torka and the others would never have
followed it had Companion and Snow Eater not led the
way. More times than this woman can count have the dogs
led us to animals and helped us to bring down game so
that all might eat together-man
and
dog, feeding as brothers. Eat them, you say? Would
we eat each other?"
The premise left the boy white-faced.
"People do not eat people!" blurted Chuk, openly
appalled.
lana and Grek exchanged long looks.
"Long ago, in the far country it was so," informed
lana solemnly. "In the deepest, darkest,
coldest times of the winter dark, when the bands gathered in
starving camps and Spirit Sucker rode on the back
of the wind looking for the dying spirits of people to eat, the flesh
of newborn babies and the bodies of the dead were meat
for some bands."
"The flesh of dead
children
who would not eat when and what their parents told them
to!" added Grek with dire emphasis.
His offspring suddenly fell eagerly upon their food
as he had known they would.
Only Chuk refrained, staring with disbelief
at his mother and father. "You would not . . . eat us?"
"Never!" lana's face twisted with the intensity of her
emotions. In the far country, with other bands and as a
slave to marauders, she had seen her babies
abandoned and killed. In the violent horror of these
memories, she trembled as she spoke with a passion
that stunned her children. "In Torka's band no one
eats of the dead or of their newborn babies! That
is why he walks alone in a country where there are
no people. That is why we have chosen to walk with him! And
that is why you must obey your father and eat the food that
is put before you, so that you will be strong when Torka
follows his totem into a new land where there will be good
hunting and plenty of fresh meat for all!"
PART IV
EVER equals CHANGING WOMAN
Under the broad wings of a soaring white-headed eagle
the People crested a long, stony rise and knew that at
last they had reached the place where Daughter of the
Sky had died. In this place the wind had turned the
fire back upon itself. The skin of the earth was black
beneath their feet, but ahead of them only a few charred
islands of blackened stubble stood amid otherwise
undisturbed communities of rough grasses,
mosses, and miniature, weather-prostrated
shrubs.
Umak raised his arms and cried out in thanksgiving
to the forces of Creation while Honee sat down and
tried to breathe without pain as she looked at him and
smiled with love and pride.
As they stood together, survivors of fire and flood
and the long, hungry trek across the devastated land, more
than one woman wept happy tears. Sayanah and
Jhon ran about and jumped for joy before withering looks
from Nantu and the older boys caused them to remember
their dignity.
Naya and Swan joined hands with the little girls and
danced in a happy circle while the hunters of the
band embraced and slapped one another upon the back as
they hooted with pleasure and relief.
Lonit looked adoringly at Torka as he stood
tall and resolute in the knowledge that he had done the right
thing in leading his people east.
Simu and Eneela held their daughter Larani so
she could "look ahead and see the country that offers
hope."
Larani sighed, closed her eyes, and lay back
into ever-present pain upon the sledge. "To you, yes .
. . not to me."
Dak reached for Demmi's hand and told her
that in the new land things would be better between them. But she
stepped away from him and went to stand beside her brother.
Manaravak paid no heed to her, for as Demmi came
to his side, his helping spirit leaped from his shoulder and
bounded off, leading the People down from the rise and into the land
where the great mammoth totem Life Giver stood
grazing
alone while others of its kind drank along the
shore of an enormous river that sparkled blue and
silver in the face of the rising sun.
The river was the dominant feature of the land. They had
all seen big rivers before, but this giant was wider
than any they had ever imagined. It muscled its
way north through a vast, braided valley that
stretched grass gold, tundra red, and willow
yellow between blue and purple hills and dark forests
of arctic spruce, tamarack, and autumn-denuded
hardwoods that fingered tenuously upward across the
broad, stony laps of the surrounding mountains.
"Deh Cho . . ."
murmured Grek in the language of the band into which he
had been born so long ago.
Torka nodded. It had been years since he had
heard the old man speak his mother tongue, but the
languages of the nomadic big-game
hunters from beyond the Sea of Ice were of one root.
Some words were so similar that they were virtually
interchangeable.
"Dehcho,"
the headman confirmed in the dialect of his
ancestors. Great River. No other name would
suit. Delighting in having the thick, resilient
tundral skin of Mother Below beneath their feet once more,
they moved on with lighter hearts and barely felt the
weight of their pack frames as they gazed across the
Valley of the Great River.
"It is beautiful!" exclaimed Lonit.
No one could disagree. But there was something infinitely
more beautiful than the view of the land itself-and that was the
sight of the game that walked upon it. Moose browsed
in tundral ponds. At the edge and upon the
surface of several pristine lakes, waterfowl still
lingered to fatten upon the northland's last berries before
beginning their migration over the great white ranges that
stood to the southeast. A herd of striped, tawny
horses moved fetlock-deep across one of many
sun-bright tributary streams that emptied out of great
dark mountain canyons to glisten like veins of liquid
mica on the massive floodplain of the valley
floor. A rivulet of hook-nosed
antelope darted ahead of a predator that remained
unseen and silent in the cover of the tall grass,
while a family of musk-oxen plodded stolidly
over the crest of the talus slope that seemed a
promising place to keep in mind when the men of the band
later set themselves to search for stones that would be suitable
for shaping into blades, projectile points, and
scrapers.
They paused and prepared to make camp along a
sparsely wooded tributary creek in good
south-facing country well above and inland of the river.
"Willow!" cried Naya with delight. "Look
everyone! We have found willow trees at last! Now
we can make medicine for Larani!" With Swan at
her side, she immediately set herself to picking the
greenest branches.
lana's brow arched thoughtfully. "You would think that she
is the only female in the band to know anything about
healing. A regular little medicine woman!"
"Just like her grandmother before her," Grek added proudly.
"And her grandfather Navahk," reminded lana
darkly.
Grek scowled at his woman. "I am her
only
grandfather! The other is dead, and the only
medicine he ever made was bad medicine, to bring pain
instead of solace, to take life rather than restore
it. Do not speak his name in this camp! Look at
Naya! She is her mother all over again!"
lana's brows lowered. "Your blood is strong in
her, but sometimes I can see his as well. Look how
she smiles . . . her teeth, so much like
Navahk's and Karana's and-was
"Stop, I say! I will not hear it."
His tone was so crushing that lana had no choice but
to obey.
"Isn't this enough?" asked Swan, pausing as she
worked with Naya to look off toward where the People were
beginning to assemble the new camp.
Naya appraised the stack of leafy branches that
she and the youngest daughter of Torka had gathered.
"Yes. This will do. Now we will need a good hot
fire in which to heat stones for a boiling bag."
"Why? The pain-eating oils of the stalks will dissolve
in Larani's mouth when she chews them. We can make
a hot drink for her later with the leaves, but now we
should help the others with the new camp."
Naya frowned. Setting up huts was hard work.
"The medicine I will make is best when boiled,"
she informed Swan.
Then, suddenly, all thought of Larani evaporated
as Manaravak came to stand alone just upstream. How
handsome he was! He seemed to be staring after something.
Puzzled and then concerned, Naya saw that the hare was
nowhere in sight. Without so much as a word to Swan,
Naya went to him. "Where is your helping spirit?"
Naya asked Manaravak when she saw that he was
loosing the thongs that held his pack frame to his
back.
He dropped the pack and pointed toward the woods
along the creek. "There. Now that we have found our
totem, he will seek his own kind. Little Scorched
Ears will seek his woman before the long winter dark
comes down."
"Do you think so?"
"He told me."
"Really?"
"Not all things are told with words, Little Girl,"
he said, andwiththe entire band looking on, he drew her
close and kissed her deeply on the mouth.
"Away! Away I say!" warned Grek, hurling
a spear toward the embracing couple.
lana shrieked in dismay. It was a strong throw,
obviously wide but deliberately close enough
to cause Manaravak to release the girl
and for Naya to cry out.
"This is not the time for that!" Grek shouted at
Manaravak. "Until Little Girl bleeds as a
woman and accepts your bride offerings, you have no right
to do that!"
Manaravak was more puzzled than disturbed by the old
man's display of emotion. "Yes," he conceded.
"But soon," he added with an emphasis that made
Naya blush.
Before the sun was down the lean-tos were up and Naya's
medicinal brew was made. For the first time since the
Daughter of the Sky had hurled Larani into the
river, she slept without pain as the People gathered around
a high, boldly crackling communal fire of
driftwood. The dogs were here, and even Honee was
feeling well enough to join the band as the last of the putrid
traveling rations were eaten.
With the next dawn the hunters went from camp in search
of elk and found what they had never even dared to dream
of: the wintering grounds of the caribou.
Since time beyond beginning the meat, hide, bones, and
antlers of the caribou had been the preferred sustenance
of the nomadic hunters of the northern steppe. Since
time beyond beginning, Torka's ancestors had followed
and hunted the caribou beyond the Sea of Ice.
But this was a new land, a new world. And this herd of
caribou-autumn-fat, autumn
sleek animals-had never seen a man, let alone
an entire hunting party of human beings.
"Speak softly," urged Torka, lying flat on
his belly with the other hunters and dogs on either side
of him. "We don't want to startle them before we can
get within killing range."
Lying to his father's right, Manaravak raised his head
into the wind. "There is no scent of fear in them. They
do not know our kind. They do not speak to one another in
warning."
"How can you know that?" Umak, lying at his father's
left, sounded annoyed.
Manaravak shrugged. "I just know."
"So many, yes!" Grek licked his lips.
"Have any of you ever seen anything so beautiful?"
exhaled Dak.
"Umak, Manaravak, you two hold back with the
dogs until I call for you," Torka instructed.
"The rest of you follow me."
The headman rose and, one meticulously paced
step at a time, led the others into the wind. Bending
almost double, he moved slowly, paused often, and
made a great show of pretending to graze in
the manner of caribou as he held his spears upright,
their tips jabbing skyward, over his head like a pair
of antlers. He moved on, then paused again, this time
by a fresh mound of caribou droppings. He knelt,
lifted a handful, and slowly began to slather it over
his arms. This was the way of his father and grandfather andofa
thousand generations of grandfathers before him. Now, if the
wind turned, his prey would catch no scent of him.
Now, since he smelled, walked, grazed, and had
antlerlike projections, it was more than likely that
the caribou would take him to be one of them.
Closer and closer to the herd he led his fellow
hunters until a young cow stared at them fixedly out
of mild black eyes.
Torka stopped. He knew that the men and boys behind
him had done the same. His heart was pounding. His hands
tensed around the bone shafts of his spears. All
along his shoulders and spine and the backs of his thighs,
his muscles quivered and tensed. Still the cow did not
move or blink. Only her jaws kept working
until a late-season blackfly that had somehow
survived the early snow landed on her left ear. The
fly drew blood. The caribou's ear swiveled and the
muscles along her neck, haunch, and shoulders
rippled. Yet
still her eyes remained fixed. Calmly, with her
tail up and her left ear still twitching, she began
to advance toward the strange, long-antlered caribou that
crouched before her.
Other animals were following her! Some were in range
of his spear now. And still she came toward him,
closer, ever closer. Torka held his breath. A
few more steps and he would be able to take hold of an
antler and, leaping out, twist her head back until
he felt the snap of her neck.
She paused, looking right into his eyes, and then,
to his amazement, through his eyes and into his spirit. He
exhaled in surprise at such unexpected
invasive eye contact. She was letting him know that
curiosity, not fear, was drawing her toward one that she
perceived to be of her own kind. He should have looked
away, for as she allowed him to see into her nature,
so, too, did she see into his.
He was wolf!
No!
He was bear!
No!
He was lion!
No!
She blinked. Confused and frightened, her head
went up, and her nostrils went wide. Every muscle
in her body stiffened as she was suddenly alert to the
realization that this strange-looking caribou was not a
caribou after all. He was something that she had never
seen-but he was everything that she feared.
He was Predator!
And had he hesitated for so much as a fraction of a
second, she would have leaped away and sounded a warning
to the entire band, but already the other caribou were reacting
to the change in her stance, so Torka did not
hesitate. Her beauty and her trust and her
vulnerability had not failed to touch him, but he
was
predator and she
was
prey, and in the lean-tos by the creek the women and children
of his band were hungry.
They killed and killed again.
Long before the day was done, the new encampment in the
Valley of the Great River was piled high with skins
and meat and bones, and each lean-to had a tangled
stack of antlers before it to signify that the man who
dwelled within was a fine hunter and provider for his
family.
There was no moon that night, but that did not
matter. The stars and the tremulous glow of a green
aurora were light enough for the people of Torka as they built
their fire high and joined to celebrate their first hunt
in the Valley of the Great River. They feasted. They
sang.
The men boasted of their bravery and skill. The dogs
took their place by the fire, where prime cuts of
meat and fat were theirs. The descendants of Aar were
celebrated in the boasting of the hunters, who sang of
how Companion and Snow Eater had pursued the
fleeing caribou to harry their prey, confusing and frightening
the caribou until they turned and fled back into the
men's waiting spears. The children watched in wonder and
delight, sucking on caribou eyes and scooping the
green, tangy, puddinglike contents from the generous
cuttings of caribou intestine that had been portioned out
to each of them.
The women glorified the tales of their men with
"oohs" and "ahhs," and portioned out the blood meats
to all and saw to it that the young girls-including
Larani-had a generous share of the glands.
But Larani refused to eat hers. She waved away
her mother's offering as she stood on shaky feet
close to her own little shelter, well into the shadows so
that she could not be seen by others, and so far
back from the fire that not even the most wayward cinder
could reach her. A lightweight sleeping fur lay
over her right shoulder and fell forward to cover the
front of her body and her ankles. Her left
shoulder, arm, and upper back were bare; it was too
painful to place even the thinnest garment against her
still-raw, oozing flesh.
She drew in a cautious breath. Despite her
weakened condition, she found it good to be on her feet
again and outside in the cool night air. Unsteady as
she was, the touch of the night invigorated her. With the
aid of Naya's medicine drink and salves, as
long as Larani did not touch the burned portions of
her body, pain remained a dull, persistent ache
rather than the intense, mind-singeing agony.
"You must eat of the gland meat, Daughter!" insisted
Eneela.
"Why?"
"So that you will shed moon blood and become a woman
of the P. It is what you were born to be! To take a
man! To bear children!"
"Daughter of the Sky has changed all that, Mother."
"No, Larani! You must not say it!"
"Why not? It is the truth." Her voice sounded
strange to her. She formed the words slowly,
being careful not to move her lips lest she loose the
beast of pain from the burns that marred the left side of
her face.
Eneela made an effort to lighten the moment.
"Look! The other girls and women are dancing now.
After the next hunt, you will join them. Why, the way
you are healing is-was
"Is what, Mother?" Larani's heart ached so
deeply that somehow the pain rivaled that of her burns.
"Look at you! You stand downwind so that you cannot smell
my ruined skin, and you avert your eyes lest you see
what is left of my face."
Eneela's voice caught in her throat, but now she
looked at her daughter eye to eye. "Yes! You
are right! It hurts me to see you this way! But you will
mend, Larani! You will again be as you were!"
"Will I?"
The question hung in the air.
"Yes!" insisted Eneela.
Too much time had passed between the answer and the query.
Larani was suddenly tired. The night wind felt
cold against her bare skin.
Now, staring off across the camp to where the men of the band were
posturing and roaring with pride as they continued to reenact
the hunt, she watched Manaravak whirling
half-naked in the firelight and experienced another
kind of pain, the pain of
wanting.
He would never again look at her with anything except
revulsion . . . and he
had
looked, once . . . and she knew that he had, because
she had looked back, and in that moment, when he had
flashed a winning smile her way and loosed a howl
of pure masculine pride, she had hoped that a day
might come when Manaravak might be allowed two
women. It would not have mattered to her that she would have been
second at his fire. To have been his would have been
enough-it would have been everything. But now it could never be.
"I will rest now," she said. "You join the others. I
will watch you and share the gladness of this night."
"All right, my dear girl, if this is what you
want. But at least eat some of the gland meat ...
to make your mother happy."
As the stars shifted their position across the night, the
glow of contentment from every belly in the encampment of
Torka reached every eye. All too soon, it
seemed, the last of the dances were danced and the People settled
happily into dreamy hours of storytelling. One
by one they drifted into sleep until only
Torka sat awake beside the warm, pulsing embers
of the fire. He listened to the wind and to the call of
wolves until the trumpet of a lone mammoth
rose from the darkness at the eastern edge of the valley.
Hearing the call of his totem, Torka wondered why
he could not rest content in the knowledge that he had found his
luck at last.
Another day was beginning, and Naya felt drained just
thinking about it because there was simply too much work to do.
If only she were a stronger, bigger girl! Her
back still ached after hours spent bending over freshly
butchered caribou. The tips of her fingers and the heels
of her hands were sore from the drudgery and meticulous
tedium of lifting yards and yards of sinew from the
bloodied back muscles of the kill. The labor was
less palatable because autumn, the best time to prepare
meat and hides for the coming winter, was also the time when
arctic berries and tubers were ripe and most sweet.
"If we do not go in search of them now, it will be too
late," she told lana as they prepared to leave
Grek's lean-to to greet the day.
Yona was also up and dressed. "Naya is right,
Mother! And picking berries is more fun than making
meat and working hides."
lana frowned, disgusted with Naya. "You have
already taken time from camp to gather willow stalks
to ease Larani's pain. For now, that will have to be
enough. The hides and meat must be prepared before they
spoil."
"But Grek is leading the boys upland into good berry
picking country today to search out stone for spearheads and
other tools. We could go with them."
"Stop wheedling, Naya! Grek and the boys will be
too busy to look out for berry-gathering girls!"
"But-was
"Not another word, I say! What are a few
berries and roots to us now? This is a meat-eating
band above all else. We must set ourselves to prepare
for winter in a camp in which everything-
everything
commst be made anew. New winter hut covers!
New tools! New floor coverings and bed skins
and clothes and moccasins."
Naya groaned as she went to look out into the morning.
The other women and girls were already outside, working
together, shooing the dogs away and enjoying gossip and
laughter. While she watched, Swan, holding
tight to one end of a length of sinew, battled with
Snow Eater as the feisty bitch tried to make off
with the other end in her teeth. The women and
girls laughed at the tug-of-war.
Snow Eater growled with happy ferocity and wagged
her upturned curl of a tail. Down on her
front paws with her rump high in the air, the dog
was so intent upon the game that she took no notice of
Companion as he came up from behind and began to sniff
her with interest.
"Good dog!" shouted Manaravak from the far side of the
camp. The other men of the band, drawn by the promise
of a good show, echoed him.
"Look to your rear, Snow Eater, before it is too
late!" Honee laughed.
"Hurry, Companion, now's your chance!" prodded
Umak.
"Hurry, dog!" called Torka. "We could use
a litter of pups!"
Naya knew that Snow Eater had been in heat
since early yesterday, and now her mate took full
advantage of his opportunity. He mounted and
began to pump while the men cheered. Naya's eyes
widened; the big dog actually seemed to be smiling!
Not so with Snow Eater. She released the sinew and
tried to free herself, but it was too late. Companion
was in deep, gripping her with his forepaws. The big
dog pumped hard toward climax. Snow
Eater, dry and unready for penetration, yipped in
protest and strained with all her might to be free of
him. It was no use; although she whined and
yipped pathetically, Snow Eater won nothing from
Companion but snarls and continued ramming.
The men of the band were laughing now, still cheering Companion
on. Naya felt sick. She did not know with whom
she was angrier-the men of the band or the male dog.
"He's hurting her!" she cried. "Make him
stop!"
Now even the women laughed.
Naya could not understand what they found so funny.
Desperate, ears back, Snow Eater was growling
and showing her teeth. With yips of pain she began
to claw frantically at the ground until her
exhausted shoulder muscles collapsed and she went
down hard on her lower jaw. Companion tightened his
grip on her rear end and kept on pumping.
The men and boys of the band howled with amusement. The
women urged Snow Eater to get up, and Eneela
called out, "Don't make it easy for him,
girl!"
With forepaws splayed and head down, Snow Eater
began to whine pathetically as Companion rammed on
until suddenly he came to shivering
climax. Tongue lolling, he stared ahead as though
in a daze. And yet he continued to hold on even
though Snow Eater's cries continued.
Naya could bear it no more. "Get him off her! He
is hurting her!" she screamed, and would have gone
to Snow Eater's rescue had lana not stopped her.
"Touch him now, and he'll take your arm off."
lana shook her head with mock disapproval and
called out loud enough for all to hear, "Isn't that just like
a man-to sneak up on a woman and slip it in
before she's ready for it!"
Now the men of the band roared with mirth.
Sickened and so angry that tears were stinging her eyes,
Naya looked at the dogs. Snow Eater was standing
now, head down, ears tucked so close to her head that
they seemed to have disappeared. Her posture was one of
utter dejection as the big male continued to hold
fast to her rump. When he tried to pull away,
Snow Eater yowled in pain and snapped at him.
He remained where he was-locked tight.
"I have seen this before," lana said evenly.
"Companion will stay on Snow Eater until his
organ relaxes enough to withdraw. It might take
hours."
"But we must help them! He is hurting
her!"
"There's nothing we can do. If anyone were to force him
out, she would be torn and bloodied. Time will ease them
both. You will see." lana turned away. "Come,
Naya. The
sinew awaits us! Time to put your back and hands to the
task!"
Naya pouted. "Soon I will have no back or
fingers left."
"Listen to me, Little Girl," lana said angrily.
"You cannot expect your old grandfather to care for you forever.
It will be a good thing when you go to share the sleeping skins
of Manaravak. But do you think that such a wild one as
he will be lenient with his woman? You will have to learn
to care for yourself and the babies that you will bear."
Babies?
thought Naya. She had never really thought about that; after
just witnessing the mating of the dogs, she did not find the
thought pleasing. Having children was a bloody, violent,
and painful experience; and once babies were born,
they were a constant responsibility. And Naya was
unused to responsibility.
"Ah ..." said lana. "That has made you think,
eh? Yes. It
is
time that you learned to do your share. No more will this woman
sew your clothes and scrape the skins that make up
your shoes and your bedding! You had better get used
to a sore back and fingers, for your work has only just
begun!"
"We will see about that!" Naya declared defiantly,
looking around for her grandfather.
Grek's request to the headman on his
granddaughter's behalf was convincing. Torka listened
to it, and to lana's objections.
"What harm can there be in it?" Torka asked lana,
adding that tomorrow Naya would resume her work with the women.
The People watched as the small group left camp
together-Grek, the boys, a smug Naya, and
Manaravak, who had been assigned by Torka to go
along as extra protection against predators.
"The girl is a troublemaker. ..." Demmi
hissed under her breath. "I, too, am sick of
woman's work! I will gather berries! Let me
pass, Dak."
"I will not. There is work to do, and you will stay to do it!"
Demmi glared across the encampment to where her father stood
with the other men. She spoke loudly: "If Grek were
not an old man who has found the soft place of
pity within the heart of my father, would Naya be
off picking berries?"
Torka's head went up immediately, and his features
expanded into a mask of sudden anger. Demmi caught
her breath. Rarely had she seen her father so
furious.
"If Naya returns with healing plants and
berries, this will be a good thing for all the band!" As
Lonit reprimanded Demmi her eyes flashed with
fury. "Torka's decision was one of wisdom and
concern for us all!"
"I did not mean to imply otherwise," Demmi
apologized. The last thing she wanted was
to embarrass her father in the presence of his people. She
wished that she could go to him now and tell him that there was
no one in the world whom she loved more.
But there was. Manaravak. The entire band knew
it, Dak most of all. She was aware of him standing
close, watching her.
"Come, Demmi. I will help you to stretch out that
doeskin that you said was ready for pegging," he
volunteered, his tone strained.
She ignored him. She was sick of him, of being his
woman, of being Kharn's mother, of the sameness of her
life. She looked off to see that Naya was holding
Manaravak's hand, as she herself used
to hold it-when he was a boy and she was a young woman,
a loving sister, sharing her life with him-teaching him,
guiding him, setting aside everything for him until,
one day, he had begun to look at Naya and had
wanted his sister beside him no more.
Naya!
She ground the girl's name between her teeth.
Frustrated, she wheeled and stormed off toward her
lean-to, cursing the taboos of her people for standing between
her and the man she was born for.
Manaravak!
Their spirits were one! Their hearts leaped to the same
drumbeat of life! In the land of her ancestors,
had she been born into Simu's band instead of
Torka's, she could have openly looked at her
brother with a woman's eyes-and he could have looked
back. They would have been one-man and his woman,
brother and sister-and Father Above and Mother Below and all
of the powers in this world and the next would have smiled upon their
mating.
She nearly wept as she stalked by Swan, who was
caring for Kharn.
"Is something wrong, Demmi?" asked her sister.
"They will never smile on them!

she proclaimed. Breath
less with anger, she paused to stare after Manaravak
and Naya.
Swan was puzzled. "Who?"
Demmi was so near to tears that she dared not speak.
Ahead of her, at the edge of camp, Umak was
gazing across the hills blank eyed and sad with longing
for the granddaughter of Grek.
Suddenly furious, Demmi went to his side.
"You can't be serious!" she asked him, her eyes
following his. "You can't be looking moose eyed after
her?"
He swallowed, embarrassed. "Naya . . . she
... uh ... is growing up."
"I wish that she would grow old and die tomorrow!"
retorted Demmi.
And this time when a man struck her, it was not Dak.
It was her brother Umak.
It was a fine day, the sort when the autumn land and
sky were as sweet as the softest, longest day of
summer. When Naya stopped to pick craneberry
leaves along a sandy creek bed, Grek gave
stem orders to Manaravak to watch over Little Girl
and keep her safe; then the old man led Tankh,
Chuk, and young Jhon and Sayanah to a
place that he called Spear Mountain. Nantu had
volunteered to guard Naya, too, but Grek said
no, and the other boys teased him about his infatuation.
Naya, still angry with lana, found immense
pleasure in
deliberately wearing her moccasins as she sloshed
through
the shallow creek and waded through a stand of willow to
" reach a luxuriant craneberry patch that
greened the tundra
just above the sandy streambed.
"Where are you going?" asked Manaravak, following and
frowning as he noted that the buckskin sack that the
girl carried slung over one shoulder was already
bulging.
"There is more craneberry here! Oh, look, it is
such a good, green clump!"
To Manaravak one clump of greenery was the same as
the next unless he was hunting meat that might be hiding
within it, but Naya was happier than ever as she chirped
like a little bird about the curative properties of this
evergreen. Manaravak found a spot well above her
on the sunny embankment and watched her. Perching on
a lichen-clad rock with his spear at his side, he
thought that she was the prettiest girl in the band
but wished that she didn't talk so much.
"This is called craneberry," Naya informed him
loftily, "because when the flowers are new, they look like
little long-legged birds."
Manaravak cocked his head thoughtfully. "So do you .
. . under your clothes!"
Naya blushed, clucked her tongue, and frowned
prettily. "It is as I suspected! There are
plenty of leaves, but no berries left. I wish
we could have come to this place earlier."
"In this place there have been no berries for a long
time now," Manaravak told her. "Look at the
leaves: Many are torn, and the branches are bent and
cracked in places. The bear kind have chewed up
all the berries in the last days of the long sun, long
before we came out of the burned land."
Naya's face was suddenly pale. "Bear? Will they
be angry that we have come to gather in this place?"
Manaravak saw her fear and answered in a deep,
measured voice that intensified her dread. "Yes,
the bear kind will be angry! They will come to drive us
away . . . like
this backslash was
Suddenly, with a boisterous laugh, he leaped from the
rock and landed before her, hunkering low and doing
the best and funniest imitation of a snarling bear that she
had ever seen as he stripped leaves from the branches
of the shrubbery and shoved them into his mouth.
"Manaravak!" She laughed with relief and delight
in his unexpected antics.
He spat the leaves out. Seeing her lithe and
lovely form moving with laughter beneath her heavy, ugly
dress, he succumbed to the urge to reach out, grab
her ankle, and pull her down.
She shrieked and, with a quick jump, avoided his
grasp. Leaving her sack of leaves where she had
placed it, she sped away, inviting chase. It was a
game that they had played as children, and Naya felt
giddy and giggly as she plunged into
the willow shrub growth. He came crashing through the
branches after her.
Laughing, she barely managed to escape him as he
went diving past her. She scrambled to her knees and
scooted farther into the cool shade of the nearly
autumn-denuded willow grove. And then she
froze.
There, in an instant, Naya recognized the
small, blood-red, berrylike fruit that she had
discovered growing in the far country beyond the burned land.
She recalled her lost necklet and, with
an exhalation of delight, realized that she would now have
another. Her small hand shot out eagerly to pluck
up
a
handful of little tough-skinned fruit that oozed warm
juice as she closed her fingers around them. She
raised her palm and licked between her fingers. Yes.
It was as she remembered, except the juice was
thicker, oilier. . . .
In this moment Manaravak tackled her and knocked
her sideways. Her breath went out of her with a
dizzying
whoosh,
and with her back pressed to his chest, she kicked and
squirmed and laughed with joy in their game, fighting
to be free of his enfolding arms.
But she suddenly felt the pounding of his heart and the heat
of his breath at her neck, and a flurry of sensation
broke loose within her . . . like the stroking wings of
every kind of bird that she had ever seen, rising,
falling, flying away and away within her body to some
wonderful warm place of refuge. She relaxed,
confused but loving the way she felt, loving the feel
of Manaravak next to her and not wanting to be free
of him at all.
She heard him exhale her name and did not know
exactly when he shifted position. He was lying on
his back now, moving his arms so that his hands were gripping
her along her sides, lifting her, turning her so that
she was facing down, being held above him as though she were
a leaf or a feather and bore no weight at all.
And then, slowly, he drew her down until she was
seated firmly astride him with her limbs folded
on either side of his hips and her hands curled upon his
chest. She was aware of the stickiness of her fingers and
breathlessly apologized if she had soiled his new
tunic.
His mouth moved with amusement at her concern. Like her
own miserable excuse for a dress, it was only
makeshift protection for his skin against the
impetuosity of the insects
and weather until better clothes could be made of
decently cured skins.
"It is nothing," he told her huskily, fingering
her dress. "This is nothing, too. Take it
off."
It seemed an odd thing for him to suggest. "Then I
would be naked."
"Yes. I will be naked, too."
The idea made her giggle. "Look,"
she said, and held out her palm to him. The berries that
she had kept within her fist were a pulpy, seedy mash
that plopped onto his chest. "Are these not strange?"
He was not looking at the pile of squashed berries
that lay upon his chest. He was fingering the shoulder thongs
that held her dress, then touching her braids,
loosing the thongs that held them.
Naya did not mind; she knew that she would have
to replait her hair anyway, and as he was fingering
her hair she was alternately licking her fingers and
rubbing the pulp into the rough skin of his tunic instead of
whisking it away. It seemed a strange thing to do, but
somehow she could not help herself.
"I found a bush of these berries in the burned land and
made a necklet of them, you know, but the river ..."
Her voice had sounded so far away. She shook her
head to clear it. "Here, taste the juice. It is
sweet."
He took her hand and pressed her palm against his
mouth.
She gasped as the most amazing sensation flooded her.
His tongue was moving to trace the contours of her
palm, slowly probing between her fingers. When he
began to suck the juice from her skin, a sudden deep
and most wonderful tickling warmth expanded
within her loins and belly and breasts. She shivered and
arched back as she gripped him with her thighs,
pressed herself into him, and moved her hips, increasing
the feeling in her loins and making the tickling worse
and more wonderful than before. It expanded to fill her
genitals with a fire that drove her to press him
harder . . . faster. . . .
A throaty sigh came from his mouth. She felt the
tension in his body. His hands were on her hips,
holding her, moving her, then he raised his hips
to meet the press of her body.
Naya trembled, amazed and delighted by this
exquisite
experience. She found no cause to keep her
feelings a secret from him.
"Good ... so good ... so
good
..." She sighed and moved and looked down at
Manaravak, at beautiful, powerful Manaravak,
who would be her man someday. The juice of the berries
stained his mouth. His eyes met hers and held. How
dark they were, how black and hot-and hungry.
Perplexed, she turned her head to one side. "If
you are hungry, there is meat in my gathering sack-was
"This is the only meat I want from you!"
She gasped again, for he suddenly sat up andwitha
single motion jerked her dress down. The thongs that
he had already loosened slipped away, and his hands were
working hard at her tiny breasts.
Pain flared. "Don't!" she cried out.
He ignored her, and the look on his face frightened
her. He leaned forward and mouthed her breasts, nipping
and sucking. Beyond listening, he bent her back-hurting
her as he ran his hands hard over her belly and
downward . . . downward until his long fingers were
invading her secret place, and shocked by the invasion,
she screamed.
He snarled then and forced her back, gripping her
thighs, and holding them wide while he bent to browse
between them, scenting her, probing her with his tongue as a
dog would do, and suddenly she thought of Companion and
Snow Eater locked together and of the way that pups-and
human babies-were born. In blood. In pain.
And always after a mating.
"No! Stop! I do not want babies!"
If he heard her, he gave no sign of it. He
was growling as, with one hand holding her down, he leaned
back and freed himself.
Fighting him, she twisted sideways. For a moment
she thought that she was free of him, but she was
not. He had her by her leg, and then his hands were turning
her, he was on top of her, straddling her, displaying
himself for her as he roared his intent like a wolf. No!
Not like a wolf!
"Wanawut!" she shrieked, and lost the battle
against a sudden wave of terror as she stared at his
organ and could not look away. Distended upward in
full erection, it seemed enormous to her-a great,
blue-veined spear that would surely pierce straight
through to her heart when it entered her.
And now, although she screamed and screamed, he
positioned himself for rape.
In that moment the boys and Crek came crashing through the
trees, and the old man roared in anger as he dragged
Manaravak off his granddaughter, and Nantu off
Manaravak.
As Naya flew into the protection of Grek's
arms, Nantu vowed to kill Manaravak. And in this
way the moment passed, and although no one knew it, the
world would never be the same for anyone in Torka's band
again.
That night Naya sobbed as if her heart would break.
The women and children were solemn, and the men engaged in low
and troubled talk in the bone-and antler-walled
council house of caribou skins.
Torka urged Manaravak to speak, but the young man
did not know what he was expected to say. Everyone,
it seemed, was angry with everyone else-and all the
anger was directed at him as he sat solemnly
staring into his lap. He was a man, not an animal,
they reminded him as Torka sat in silence, waiting
for a response from him.
He did not speak. He could not find the words. He
did not understand their accusation. Of course he was a
man! Had he not acted as a man? Did men not
mate when roused by a ready and willing female?
Old Grek was sitting cross-legged on the
fur-covered floor, yet he seemed to levitate
as he reached out to stab the air in front of
Manaravak's nose and roar at him like a bull
bison set to charge. "Naya is a
ch*.
I warned you of this before! You shame us all!"
Manaravak looked up.
Shame?
He did not understand the concept any more than he
understood why Naya had suddenly refused him when
she had so eagerly led him into a physical state that
had allowed him no retreat. Even now, when he
thought of how she had pressed herself into his
loins, he was not convinced that she had really wanted him
to stop, and he could not comprehend why everyone was so
angry because he had tried to force her to continue. It was
understood by everyone that she would be his woman. What
did it matter how or when he took her? The
results would be the same. Besides, with the exception of
Torka, they had all willingly shared their own women
with him.
He thought about that. He had only used Honee, a
bland and uninteresting partner, twice. lana usually
counseled "less wolfishness" on his part, and not
enjoying a woman who criticized him through a mating,
he usually turned to Eneela when the man need was on
him. Although she never failed to look at him with
disapproval by day, she would come whispering to him in the
night without Simu's knowledge. She would slip into his
lean-to, peel off her clothes, and lie naked beneath
his bed skins, offering her great brown-nippled breasts
to his mouth and opening herself wide to his exploration;;
and release.
He frowned. were the men angry because he shared their
women? He did not know. He was the headman's son
and the shaman's brother, but he felt like an outsider.
It was a lonely feeling. He did not like it. He
wanted to be one of them. He wanted to know
why they all kept referring to Naya as a child. What
kind of child led a man on through a willow grove
to fall laughing in his arms, then worked herself on his
groin in trembling anticipation of full sexual
release? No child at all!
Perhaps he had missed some subtlety in the
language of his people; he had not begun to learn their
tongue until he was ten autumns old.
Perplexed, he asked them: "Li, daughter of my
brother Umak, she is a little girl, yes?"
"She is," affirmed his twin.
"And Uni, daughter of Simu, she is a little
girl?"
Simu's head moved with begrudging assent.
Manaravak nodded. Up to this point his concept of
what made a child seemed to be shared by the others.
"Yona, the daughter of Grek, she is also a little
girl?"
The old man's mouth turned down so far that the seams
of his lips seemed to be gouging their way into his
neck. "My Yona is a
baby backslash was
Now Manaravak was more confused than ever. Babies
cried and sucked milk from their mother's breasts and
messed the hut floors of their parents.
Yona, on the other hand, was six, and Uni and Li
were five. He pictured their tubular little bodies,
flat chests, and stick legs. He would hit
himself in
the
head with a rock if he so much as thought of mating with
any of them! Now anger stirred in him. Was this what
they were accusing him of? "I do not understand!" he
protested. "Naya, the granddaughter of Grek, she
is
little,
but she is
not
a child. She has breast buds and round hips, and she
smells like a woman, and she moves on a man
like-was
Grek roared, "She has yet to bleed as a
woman!"
Manaravak was still uncomprehending. "She will soon.
And what difference does it make?"
"All!"
Grek shot back and would have snapped to his feet and
knocked down the low-ceilinged council hut had
Simu and Dak not reached out and held him by his
shoulders.
Seated at Torka's right, Umak rolled his eyes
in disbelief of his brother's ignorance.
Torka's face was expressionless as he looked at
his second son. "A man of the People may not mate
with a girl who has yet to bleed as a woman,
Manaravak. You have been told this."
Manaravak blinked and stared. "Yes." He
remembered. At last he understood. He had
broken some sort of prohibition; his people's lives were
full of prohibitions. "In the willow grove with
Naya, she made it easy for me to forget."
"She?" Grek leaned forward, trembling with rage,
his old face contorted as he fought to control his
temper. "You made Little Girl cry! If we had
not heard Little Girl scream and if Nantu had not
come running-was
Manaravak also leaned forward, and head to head with
Grek over the small fire, he shouted at the old
man. "Your Naya is no little girl! Ask
Umak the way she danced before us naked on the day that
Daughter of the Sky set fire to the earth. Your Little
Girl was asking to be mated then, and she was asking
to be mated when she led me into the grove! Speak,
Umak, tell them!"
He waited. His eyes met Umak's and
held. Why was his brother silent? Why did he
look so distressed?
"Regardless, a man of the People must not forget the
traditions of his ancestors, Manaravak!"
Torka spoke with solemn emphasis.
Manaravak fell silent. He kept looking at
his brother until Umak looked away. Loneliness
and betrayal overwhelmed him. If Umak would not
speak in his defense, who would?
Torka looked at Manaravak coldly, out of the
eyes of a headman, not a father. "What has happened
between Naya
and you was wrong. There must be chastisement. You are no
longer a wild boy whose ignorance of the ways of your
people may be overlooked and forgiven."
Manaravak bent forward, cradled his head in his
hands, and sighed. No matter how hard he tried, the
ten long summers that he had lived as a solitary
human being among beasts had made their mark upon him,
and he could not free himself of it. The breast milk that
had nourished him as an infant had not come from the
breasts of a woman, it had come from the breasts of an
animal. When he had been a child in need of warmth and
comfort, no human mother had been there to draw the cold
flap of a pit hut tight against the weather and
hold him close, rocking him as she sang the songs
and told him the wonderful myths that instructed a child in
all that it meant to be a human being.
No. For Manaravak there had been a nest of
bones, twigs, and bloodied feathers plucked from the
breasts of screaming teratorns and eagles. And for
Manaravak, all comfort had come in the massive,
hairy, enfolding arms of the wanawut, in the cooing
of the beast, and in the soft breath of a meat-eating
animal blowing soothingly and lovingly upon his face and
body to keep him warm. The memory touched him
deeply. The motherly love of the beast had been enough for
him. It had been everything.
He closed his eyes and pressed his lids with his
fingers. The men of his band were arguing softly among
themselves, coming to decisions. The sound was like a hum of
blackflies droning in the heavy amber air of a
windless summer day. Manaravak barely heard it.
He was remembering his other life, his animal
life, a life devoid of words or songs or
abstract thoughts-a life of now, never of yesterday
or tomorrow . . . a life in which the word
why
was never asked or even thought of ... a life of
pure, unthinking response to the drives of
instinct and the need for self-gratification. He
sighed. It had not been a bad existence.
"Manaravak?"
Torka's voice drew him from his reverie.
"It is now agreed among us." There was strength and
remorse in Torka's eyes as he spoke.
"Naya will not be for you. This is her wish, and it will be
honored. When Naya becomes a woman, she will be
free to go to Umak. He has asked for her.
Honee is not well and could use help with the children at
her fire circle."
Manaravak stalked from the council hut in a fury.
"Manaravak!" Umak followed him. "Brother,
stop! Wait."
"Why? What kind of brother are you? Why did you
keep silent when I had need of you to speak for me
... unless it was because you knew that if you did not
speak, you would soon be free to snap like a hungry
wolf after my woman?"
"She is not your woman, Manaravak. She is not
a woman at all." Umak stepped in front of
Manaravak. "Listen to me, Brother. Naya has
refused you. Grek has said that he will not allow her
to go to you even when she does become a woman."
Manaravak's face was set and wary. "And
meanwhile you do well for yourself, Brother Umak. You
will take her to your fire circle, where already you have a
female of your own. You are a clever shaman! You will
have two women at your fire while Manaravak
lives alone!"
"By your own choice, Manaravak. You could have chosen
Honee."
"No, I could not. You are eldest. She was without a
man. Tradition sent her to your bed skins. And now
you will have my Naya, too! You are greedy,
Umak."
Umak put a steadying hand upon his brother's forearm.
"Bight now she wants no man at all! You have
frightened all desire to become a woman right out of
her."
Manaravak's frown became a scowl. "I do not
believe that."
"You had better believe it."
Manaravak's eyes grew hard. "You, firstborn
twin, eldest son, and Shaman, you know everything. You
have
everything. The gift of the Seeing Wind is yours, but
I am your twin. I am not blind to what is in your
heart. I know what you want. Don't try to tell
me that you do not."
They stood facing one another.
The other men were emerging from the council house.
"Let there be no bad feeling between us, Brother."
Umak spoke strongly, with no attempt at
deception or deceit. "If Naya looks at you
again and smiles, if she changes her mind and
decides to be your woman and not mine, I will be
content if the council approves."
Manaravak nodded. "May it be so." It was no
easy thing to remain angry with his brother.
"And if she smiles at me and consents to be my
woman?" pressed Umak.
Manaravak raised a telling brow. He had always
loved a
challenge, especially from Umak, who knew how
to make a contest all that it could be. "I will be content
if you will agree to share her!"
"Never!" replied Umak.
"We shall see," said Manaravak. "We shall see."
Autumn seemed to end in a single night. In the
following cool, ever-shortening days of rising wind and
occasional light snow, bad feelings were set aside
at the headman's command and all worked together to make a
strong camp against the long, endless night to come. The
People could smell new snow in the high
passes, and there was much talk of an early winter.
Larani was glad. Although she was still weak and in pain,
her love for her mother had forced her to make concessions
to Eneela's care. Nourished upon marrow broth,
blood, and gland meat, she was beginning to feel stronger
despite herself. The calling of loons had awakened
her this morning, and for a long while she had lain still,
listening, loving the sound of them. It had occurred to her
in a rush of clarity that she had always loved the sound of
loons, and even as the loons must soon rise from the
waters and fly away before the first hard freeze, she,
too, could rise from her lethargy and despair. In
time, when she was healed, she could be of use to her people.
What more could anyone ask of life?
And so she had risen and gone out to enjoy the bitter
taste of the frigid morning air. For the first time since
her injury, she looked forward to days of endless night
in which she could sit at the back of the communal hut with
her scars safely hidden in robes of gloom,
close to the others again, listening to stories and conversing.
She looked across the valley toward the surrounding
mountains. Under the leaden sky, they appeared as gray
and forbidding as the scars of an old hunter ... as
gray and forbidding as her own ruined flesh would be when-and
if- it ever healed.
Larani shuddered at the comparison, and her robe
settled against her burns. Pain erupted. She
shoved the wrap back and away, bearing her scars.
She did not intend to cry out, but she did, and from all
across the camp, people looked up from their tasks to stare
her way.
Aware that Manaravak was among them, Larani
pulled up her robe and, nearly fainting from the
agony, ducked quickly into the privacy of her
solitary shelter. She dropped to her knees. The
robe crumpled around her. Her hands went to her
face. When the door flap was brushed aside and the
wind entered, she stiffened against her certainty that
Manaravak had followed.
"Here, Larani. I've brought something for your pain."
Larani's spirit shriveled with disappointment at the sound
of Naya's voice.
"Can I stay with you awhile?" asked the granddaughter
ofGrek.
"Go away, Naya. The hurt I feel cannot be
taken away by any of your medicines."
Naya took a sip from the bladder flask that she had
brought for Larani, then licked her lips. "Oh,
Larani, may I stay with you? It's all I can
think of to make the two of them leave me
alone!"
Larani turned toward Naya. The girl looked
pathetic- small and nervous and obviously
preoccupied. The near rape had changed her, but not
enough to allow her to realize how hurtful her words had
been. "Poor Naya . . . what
are
you to do? It is truly a terrible thing to have
both
the headman's twins trying to win a smile from you."
Naya pouted. "Are you making fun of me,
Larani?"
"No, Little Girl, I am envying you with all my
heart."
Although the last of the migratory waterfowl had left
the valley, the great mammoth totem Life Giver
grazed with his land in the spruce groves of the eastern
foothills. When Torka led his fellow hunters
on exploratory forays deep into the flanks of the
surrounding mountains, they also found to their infinite
pleasure and satisfaction that small herds of
caribou and elk would indeed pass the winter in the
wind-protected canyons.
"This is a good land, yes!" proclaimed Grek,
grinning, as he wheezed from exhilaration and the
overexertion brought on from the long overland walk.
Torka and Simu eyed the old hunter with
ill-concealed concern until Dak pointed off and
drew their attention to the hills to the south.
"Look!" he exclaimed. "The herd of horses that
we saw when we first entered the valley is still there!
And below, do you see the moose breaking up ice on the
surface of that pond?"
Simu stared ahead; with a slow, reflective nod of
his head, the corners of his mouth turned up as he
spoke his thoughts aloud. "If our immediate supplies
run out and our cache pits fail to provide us with enough
to see us through the winter-and if the forces of Creation will
allow it-there will be fresh meat to hunt and hot blood
to drink in the depth of the long winter dark."
Our supplies will not run out, and our cache pits will
not fail us,
thought Torka with absolute resolve.
In the days that followed, his men, under his supervision,
placed cache pits with infinite care so that whenever the
hunters went out across the valley-or in the event of
an emergency the camp had to be relocated-the People
would always be near a ready source of food and
supplies. Every pit was dug and lined with waterproof
hides, then filled near to bursting with meat
and fat, extra rolls of sinew and thong, bow
drills and packets of kindling and extra wicks,
spearheads and shafts, and spare new tools made
of caribou bone and the fine stone that the men and boys had
brought back from Spear Mountain.
Torka knew that never before had he stood at the edge
of winter with a better-stocked encampment than the one
into which he and his people had settled.
And yet, as the moon rose and fell and the days grew
ever shorter, Torka refused to allow even the youngest
members of the band to squander their time. The People speared
fish and snared ptarmigan. The drying frames sagged
beneath the weight of caribou meat, and the women had
prepared hides to provide clothes, sleeping
furs, and hut covers enough for three bands.
When Naya complained, Lonit told her to be still.
"Stop wasting time, Naya. Even the little ones are
helping to pluck feathers from the ptarmigan . . .
even if they are making a mess of it!"
Naya looked off just in time to see Kharn throw pin
feathers at Uni and Li. Swan-in charge of the
boy, as
always-tried to stop him, but it was too late. In
seconds, Companion and Snow Eater had sighted
on the game and were leaping, barking, and
circling amid a blizzard of down. Everyone in
camp was laughing as the wind scattered the feathers high
and wide.
Kharn led the others in a wild, reaching, giggling
pursuit of the blowing feathers. But Swan, deep in
the cloud of flying feathers, captured the boy and
tucked him under one arm. Leaping dogs and running children
got under her feet, and she fell, tripped by an
overexcited Companion. In a moment, Simu,
Grek, Umak, and Torka rushed in to collect and
scold their sons and daughters, while Dak was
shooing the dogs away and helping Swan to her feet
as he checked both Kharn and her for bruises.
"Fun!" guffawed the boy, spitting feathers.
"I am fine! Fine!" informed Swan, and although her
blush was invisible in the snow of ptarmigan down, it
colored her voice, so that when she placed Kharn
into his father's arms and turned away, Demmi
looked after her and mocked.
"Be careful, Swan! I'm watching you!"
"Good!" Swan replied under her breath, so low that
only Torka heard her as she walked past him,
her teeth clenched, eyes flashing, and cheeks
blazing.
The next day Torka led the women out
to dig the season's remaining sweet tubers. When this
was done, he urged Naya to gather more healing herbs and
berries. He sent her in the company of the other women
and girls and watched over her himself, insisting that
Manaravak accompany him so his son might see
what is expected of an adult male when he is
sent to guard the females of the band. Umak trailed
along uninvited.
Manaravak comported himself well. Naya told him
to stay away from her, and he did, but before the day was
done, he had made her a necklet of odd-looking
berries. In what was obviously an apology, he
proffered them with awkward words and utmost deference.
"What sort of a present is that?" teased Umak.
"I will make you a necklet, Naya, of the finest
greenstone and blackest obsidian!"
The girl did not seem to hear him. She remained
openly wary of Manaravak, but it was clear that the
necklet pleased her, and as Torka observed in
silence she accepted Manaravak's present.
That night the mammoth trumpeted in the eastern
foothills and wolves sang a restless song that
spoke to Torka and his people of changing weather. Soon
the snow would come. The sun would slip away for another
three moons, but Torka did not worry.
He slept well, and the next day when he walked
alone outside the camp, an almost overwhelming
feeling of contentment filled him. He looked back
toward the newly established encampment of his people.
Large and small, the conical winter pit huts
stood against the sky. It made him feel good to look
at them. Soon Torka and his people would endure their first
winter in the Valley of the Great River. They would have
shelter and warmth, and meat and fat upon which to feed. And
over low fires of dung and bones and the dried
gleanings of the autumn earth, or gathered around the
light of Lonit's lamp, they would have stories of the
ancients upon which to draw their strength. Soon the children
of the new land would learn of how their ancestors had
endured uncounted and uncountable winters in the far
western country beyond the Sea of Ice. They would
learn that they were descendants of First Man and First
Woman, who walked together upon the yielding flesh of
Mother Below beneath the vast, wrathful, star-freckled skin
of Father Above while the beast wanawut prowled beyond the
edge of the world learning how best to teach the People the meaning
of the word
fear.

It was the time of the long dark. It was the time
when Father Above closed his yellow eye, wrapped
himself in robes of storm darkness, and slept in the
arms of his sister the moon.
Naya sat cross-legged and glum within the pit hut
of Grek, sipping at a sour concoction of melted
snow, melted fat, pulverized dry willow
stalks, and all that remained of her family's
supply of chopped adrenal glands.
"Drink!" lana insisted.
Naya stared at her grandfather's woman. "I don't
like it!"
"Too bad! You know that it is the gland meat that will do
the trick! Larani has already come to her time of
blood, and I want you to, also."
Naya made a face of revulsion. "I do not care
if I
ever
become a woman!" she said rebelliously.
"still do!" lana was openly angry. "Because then you shall
leave this hut! Your poor old grandfather shouldn't be out
in the winter dark hunting caribou so you might have fresh
gland meat!"
The hostility in lana's voice brought Naya near
to tears; her chin quivered as she spoke in her own
defense. "Swan has not bled yet, either.
And I begged Grandfather not to go!"
lana measured the girl with sudden thoughtfulness.
"Naya, are you afraid to become a woman?"
The girl stared into her lap. "I am happy as I
am, here in the hut of my grandfather." Then, suddenly,
she shook her head violently. "I do not want a
man-not Umak, not Manaravak, not any man at
all!"
"You must not be afraid, girl. What happened in the
grove was unfortunate, but Manaravak has tried
to make amends and-was
Naya looked up. Her eyes flashed. "I tell
you, I do not want a man! I am too young!
Everyone can see that I am too young! Everyone still
calls me Little Girl-everyone but
him,
and I do not want
him,
not ever again! Or Umak! I do not want Honee as
a fire sister. I
have
a sister. Yes! Little Yona is like a sister
to me." Her face gentled as she looked at the child.
"Aren't you, Yona? Come. Let us play again with the
new buckskin dolls that lana has made
for you! Come! I will let you wear my stone
necklace!"
Yona took full advantage of the invitation. "I
will play if you will make me my
own
necklace from the extra red berries in your big
hide bag!"
In the cold blue light of the Arctic winter night,
Torka, Manaravak, Grek, and Companion
trotted out across the Valley of the Great River in
search of caribou. The night was so cold that even the
dog wore boots: paw bags of soft caribou
hide bound, with the hair facing in, with sinew cords
knotted midway up each furry leg.
The men needed more than just boots. Along with their
pack frames of caribou antler, Torka,
Manaravak, and Grek each wore undergarments,
stockings, and mitten liners of the supplest skins of
caribou calves, chewed to a consistency of velvet
by the women and girls of the band. Their mittens were of
caribou skins, tanned with the hair on and turned
inward to form an insulating layer of fur between the liner
and the actual mitten. Their boots were cross laced
to the knee with strips of thong, lined with down and
lichens, then triple-soled with hard-tanned
hide. The bottoms were turned up well over the
toes and heels, then crimped and stitched all around
softer uppers made of short-haired caribou leg
skins. Their tunics and trousers were of a double
thickness of meticulously softened caribou hide
worn with the hair facing in.
They rested for a few moments to cool off; even though
the temperature was low enough to sear their lungs fatally
had they not filtered each breath through the long guard
hairs of their wolf-tail ruffs, the hunters were
perspiring heavily. The warmth was not unwelcome.
To be cold on this night was to die on this night.
They all knew it as they went on.
At last they reached the deeper snow of the
foothills. With Grek lagging behind, Torka and
Manaravak paused and pointed ahead. Although no
caribou could be seen, father and son nodded, knowing that they
had found their prey; an extensive band of ice fog
lay ahead-
a
frozen vapor created by the exhalations of living
animals.
Torka and Manaravak hefted their spears.
By asking Manaravak on this hunt, Torka had
hoped to soften Grek's opinion of his
second-born son.
"Remember now, three kills only," cautioned
Torka. "One for the new woman, Larani, who must
be honored; one for Swan, who needs gland meat if
she is ever to become a woman; and one for Naya."
Grek's lips puckered peevishly. "Yes.
Maybe someday."
"Then we are agreed," said Torka. "We come from
a camp rich in dried meat and stored fat. It would
be an offense to the forces of Creation and to the life
spirits of the caribou if we were to kill more than we
need."
The dog loped ahead and disappeared into the fog.
Torka, Manaravak, and Grek had donned the
new stalking cloaks that they had packed in their back
frames, then moved forward, spears in hand.
Torka's spear struck true, and a cow fell.
An adolescent calf turned its head to see the
cause of the cow's
whoof
of surprise and pain. It, too, collapsed with
Manaravak's spear in its lung, and death poured
hot and red from its nostrils and gaping mouth. In that
moment a second cow fell to Grek's spear, and the
men and dogs howled together in triumph.
After endless days of confinement in the darkness of their
winter camp, Manaravak was inspired to spear a
fourth animal-a bull, a more fitting kill than a
calf for a man-but Torka and Grek did not
notice. They slew the fallen animals and ate of
their raw flesh, feeding like lions until, sated on
fresh, hot meat at last, Torka drew back,
trembling.
Wolves were howling somewhere in the night, and for a frightening
moment it seemed that something larger and more dangerous-and
somehow almost human-was howling with them.
Wanawut?
He listened closely, but there was only the sound of the
wind and of Grek and Manaravak feeding with the dogs.
He looked at them and noticed with a start that there were
four dead caribou on the ground instead of three.
Something that his long-dead grandfather had taught him so many
years ago came to mind: Remember, Torka,
only a thin caul of control separates the beast
man from the beast animal, predator from prey. Ah,
yes, Torka, you must never forget that only a fool
fears the wanawut more than he fears the animal that
lives within himself.
Suddenly impatient with the animalistic smacking,
grunting, and sucking sounds coming not only from
the dogs but from Grek and Manaravak, he commanded,
"Enough! What are you trying to do? Eat all four
caribou by yourselves?"
Grek put down the gore-slimed coils of
intestine from which he had been squeezing the soft,
undigested contents of the caribou's last meals into his
mouth. He smacked his lips and drew back from his
feast. Even in the darkness, it was apparent that the fur
edges of his ruff were soaked in blood. "Sorry.
Got carried away, yes! Four, you say?"
Manaravak remained as he was, straddling the rib
cage of the caribou bull. He had tossed off his
stalking cloak and thrown his hood back; he lay
prone with his face buried in the throat of the animal,
fiercely and loudly sucking blood from the wound that his
dagger had made while life still pumped hot and hard
out of the dying heart. The hind leg of the caribou jerked,
and its forelimbs had begun to tremble spasmodically.
"Enough!"
shouted Torka, because for the first time he saw that the
animal upon which his son was feeding was still alive.
"Manaravak!"
The young man looked up. There was blood on his
face. "What is it?"
"Your spear in the side of that bull marks
it as your kill-a
fourth
kill when I commanded only three. And you feed on it
like a lion, not like a man!"
Manaravak took this as a compliment. "Had to kill
better than just a calf to honor the new woman!
We hunt like lions, the three of us! A lion
knows the way to drink his fill before the blood
freezes. Come, before this caribou dies and its blood
stops flowing. Come, Father, and you, Grek, you old
lion. There is life and strength here for men who must
carry much meat back to their people!"
He was right, and Torka knew it. True, they had
killed four animals instead of three, but what
difference could it make now?
Grek was vain enough to gulp down the young man's
compliment and grew visibly fat upon it as, strutting
forward and searching out a place to draw blood from the
neck of the caribou, he forgot his animosity toward
Manaravak. "Old lion, yes?"
"Yes," replied Manaravak. "Old and strong and
very dangerous to caribou!"
The hut of blood was a small, conical shelter not
unlike the other pit huts except that it had been
raised well away from the other-shelters.
Peering from the entryway of the hut of blood, Larani
stared across camp toward the large communal lodge.
Her eyes fixed on the twelve-pointed double rack
of antlers that spread wide over the entrance. Sheened
with ice and dripping icicles, the antlers shimmered
red, blue, and green in the cold, brazen light of a
multicolored aurora. Larani cocked her head
at the sight and listened to the sound of the sha-
man's chanting as it escaped, along with thick,
gray smoke, from the vent hole high at the apex
of the shaggy, curving roof. On any other night,
Larani would have found beauty in the sights and sounds,
but tonight they seemed rife with ominous portent.
"Umak sings for you," said Eneela proudly. "Come
back inside, Daughter. The other women will be here
soon, and there is much to do if you are to be ready for the
celebration in your honor."
The words made Larani feel sick with
apprehension. She found herself recalling the bleak but
comforting acceptance of her condition to which the calling of
loons had brought her less than a moon ago. But
a moon ago she had been a girl who had yet
to shed a woman's blood or to realize what would
face her when she did. Now a new moon had
risen and set, and the loons had left the
Valley of the Great River. She closed her
eyes, imagined herself winging her way southward with them,
flying high and free and away from all that faced her
now.
Her thoughts ran momentarily wild with hope. She
could run from the hut and from the encampment. A few
deep breaths would be enough to sear her lungs and make
all future breaths impossible. She would die, but
her spirit would soar with the loons, released from her ruined
body and the pain of her burns, free of the shameful
obligations that now lay ahead.
"Come away from the cold, Larani. Close the
flap, Daughter, and kneel again before the fire. You
need have no fear of it. I have plenty of water here
if it grows too hot. Here now, you must breathe in the
good smokes and sweat away the last of your
childhood." Eneela added boughs of artemisia to the
small fire. "Ah, my dear girl, since the day
of your birth I have waited to share this joy with you!
Oh, Larani, if only I could make you feel the
sweetness of this moment as I feel it-to be a mother,
to see one's eldest girl become a woman!"
Larani, suddenly furious, faced her mother.
"Stop!" she cried, but when she saw Eneela's
loving face fall, her anger bled away
and her thoughts of death shattered. "I am sorry, but
I do not want to be here and would
not
be here if Torka and Simu had not insisted upon it!"
Eneela clucked her tongue admonishingly. "You
could not have stayed in your own hut, Larani! When a
woman sheds moon blood, she must be secluded
lest the spirits cause
others to bleed, too! And would it not be something to have the
men of the band begin to suffer cramps and-was
"I
was
away from everyone," Larani interrupted, in no
mood for her mother's strained attempt at humor.
"Not far enough! What is the matter with you, Larani?
Every girl dreams about coming to the hut of blood as a
first-time woman."
"Look at me, Mother. See me as I am."
Eneela's head went defensively high. "You are
healing nicely."
"I am scarred! Ugly!"
"You are a new woman who is capable of taking
new life into her belly and creating the future of the
band out of her own flesh! Nothing is more beautiful or
wondrous!"
Larani hung her head and felt the new scar
tissue at the side of her neck and head stretch and
ache. She began to cry. Eneela would find her
beautiful, no matter what. But what of the others?
What of Manaravak? What would he see when the
new woman was summoned forth to display herself? She
reached for the bladder flask of medicine drink that
Naya had left with her; Naya's brew had a
way of dulling more than pain-it took the edge off
reason. Larani drank deeply.
"Are you still feeling unwell?" asked Eneela with
concern.
Larani pursed her lips against the unexpected
sweetness of the liquid, immediately realizing that Naya
had added something unfamiliar to this batch. A wave of
nausea and light-headness nearly overcame her.
"I am feeling sick," she said, putting the flask
aside. The wave was passing. She was sleepy now,
and more than a little surly. "As sick as the People will be
when they look at the new woman when she displays
herself before the ceremonial fire!"
The hunters returned to the camp in the cold,
brazen light of the aurora. The fresh caribou meat
was portioned and prepared for the feast fire. It was a
large blaze, fed with fat and bones and
piled high with driftwood from along the riverbank.
"Ah!" exclaimed Naya, peeking out of Grek's
pit hut. "If there will be a fire like this for me and
presents and dancing and feasting, then I
want
to be a woman! I just do not want to take a man!"
lana's keen eyes saw clearly that Naya was
feeling much better for the first time in many days. Grek
would have been
glad to see this. He was out doing whatever males did
in the council hut before a winter new-woman
ceremony. Yona lay on her back, humming
sleepily to one of her dolls.
lana looked at her daughter out of narrowed eyes.
Yona had been drowsy and irritable ever since
Naya had given her a necklace of berries.
lana had come close to examine the fruits. They were
unfamiliar to her. "Wear them," she had advised
Yona, "but do not eat them."
She still recalled how Naya had caressed the
necklet and had smiled at it as though it were a friend that
might smile back. "These berries are good. They
have never made me sick," Naya had insisted.
lana's frown settled into an expression of
puzzlement because the berries seemed to make
Naya feel well and happy. Even now, as the
girl plopped herself cheerfully down onto her bed
furs, she was chewing on yet another one.
"We must be careful of new foods, Naya."
"Yes, yes, of course." Naya was not in a mood
to be careful. She was having a wonderful time combing
her hair. "Look, lana ... do you see the way
the tines work through the tangles? This comb Umak gave
me works very well!"
"If you do not want to take a man, then you should not
accept his gifts."
"Umak is different. He's my friend."
"And he is
still
a man-who desires you as much or even more than
does Manaravak!"
Naya thought about this as she held the seedy little dried
berry between her front teeth, moving her jaws
to extract the last of its oils. "What is it like
to be desirable?" Her voice almost a purr.
"What is it like when Grek lies on you or when you
are sent to ease the man need of Manaravak, and he
lies naked on you and moves like a thrusting ram and
howls like a wolf when his man bone enters? Is it
pain or pleasure when you spread yourself
wide for him, or are pain and pleasure the same thing
when a man and a woman are joined and moving together and-was
"Naya!" lana was startled not only by the girl's
questions but by the look in her eyes. A change had come
over the girl. She had dropped her comb and now sat
rigidly upright on her folded knees, moving
slowly on her heels. Her pupils were fixed and
dilated. "What kind of questions are these to ask in
front of Yona? And from one who proclaims that she
has no desire for a man! Stop moving on your
heels like that! Look at you-you are hot and ready for
it!"
"It?" The question could not have been more guileless.
lana was furious. Her slap came hard and fast.
Incredibly, as though the blow had amused rather than
hurt her, Naya smiled as she held her palm
against her cheek. "You cannot hurt me," she said
defiantly.
"Perhaps not," lana allowed, "but I will tell your
grandfather of your behavior. And he shall also know that I
am again with child. Yes, girl, do not look so
surprised! Soon Yona, Tankh, and Chuk will
have a new brother or sister. And soon the hut of
Grek will not be big enough for both of us!"
The people of Torka circled the ceremonial
fire. In their hooded, heavy winter clothes they
clapped their thickly mittened hands, sidestepped,
feet sliding to the right.
Umak danced alone inside the circle until at
last he stopped and, in the commanding, stentorian voice
of a shaman, called out, "Larani!"
The dancing stopped. The people stared at their shaman,
nodding in approval of his appearance and
appropriately arrogant stance. Honee had
designed his tunic and headdress, festooning every inch
with the feathers of snowy owls and winter-white
ptarmigan. Across his upper back and shoulders was a
cloak fashioned of the feathered skin of a teratorn,
its wings spread wide and fastened to his gauntlets
so that when he spread his arms, he appeared about to soar
into the night. The head of the teratorn crowned a
thickly ruffed hood of fox skins that extended
well out over his face with its beak agape and its
eye sockets filled with two glinting flakes of
shining obsidian.
Naya was watching. He stood taller and thought,
Soon
a new-woman fire will burn for you! And then you will
choose a man!
You
will choose me!
Umak's contentment vanished when he saw that the old
man was standing next to Manaravak. Grek's dour
attitude toward Manaravak had changed since they
had returned to camp. Everyone spoke of their
gladness at seeing the newfound camaraderie, but
Umak had been puzzled until he had heard
Manaravak refer to the old man as "Old
Lion."
Flattery.
The wind congealed in Umak's mouth.
Two can
play at that game!
he thought, and knew that he, as shaman, already held the
edge.
"Larani, daughter of Simu and Eneela!
Larani, sister of Dak and Nantu and Uni!
Larani, new woman, new sister to the daughters of
this band, come forth now to the People!"
The women and girls of the band lifted bone flutes
to pipe a high, atonal, cacophonous fanfare
at the sound of the shaman's second summons to the
new woman.
"Larani, new woman, come forth now to the sons of this
band so that they may rejoice at the coming of the new
woman! Come, new woman! This shaman calls you
forth, as now the eldest of our people-
the bison-strong, lion-bold elder
combeats the drum of welcome as the new woman comes
forth!"
With a flourish directly inspired by the unprecedented
compliments, old Grek hefted the ceremonial
drum, which had been made for this occasion. Tradition
decreed that the eldest male must be the first to slap the
drum with the flat of his hand before passing it on to the
headman, who, after rousing the second beat of
honor, then passed it on until each adult
male in the band had completed his turn.
Simu was the last to accept it. As the father of the new
woman, the drum was now his to keep until she took
a man. When her virginity was a thing of the past, her
mate would bring the drum before the headman and the
assembled people. He would strike it one last time; then,
as the new woman stood proudly by, her man would
symbolically pierce the skin of the drum with his spear
and return it to her parents, who would then burn it.
As Simu struck the drum now, he made the
mandatory summoning shout, and the People cheered as the new
woman was escorted from the hut of blood by her mother.
The resultant cloud that formed above the
gathering glistened in the light of the star-jeweled
aurora until it was consumed by the rising, tremulous
waves of heat that rose out of the ceremonial fire.
Simu interpreted it as a bad omen. He was
participating this night only because Torka had insisted
upon it and because Eneela had sworn that if he did not,
she would sleep with her back to him, as rigid and
cold as a slab of ice ... and if a need for
woman's pleasure came over her, she would seek
it with Manaravak.
Simu gritted his teeth. The latter was already a
source of anger between them. True, he had Summer
Moon to ease him, but she was at long last with child, and
he would do nothing to jeopardize her long-hoped-for
dream of having a baby of her own.
He stared ahead at his daughter. He had seen the
fine new-woman clothes that Eneela had made, but
instead Larani was shrouded in a tentlike covering of
white caribou skins and fox fur that fell from the top
of her head to the tips of her moccasins. The girl was
wearing her new bed skins!
The bone flutes grew silent. An exhalation of
dismay and pity went out of every mouth.
Simu struggled against disappointment. How he had
looked forward to this moment! How he had
imagined his fine, bright Larani striding regally to the
ceremonial fire, folding back her hood, and
allowing everyone in the band to see the radiance of her
face as she announced proudly, "Yes! The
new-woman Larani is here! Let the People
celebrate as she walks away forever from the child who
once answered to her name!"
Within his ruff, Simu could have wept for what might have
been. He would never forgive Torka for refusing him
her death or for insisting that she go through with this travesty
of a ceremony. How could she be honored as a new
potential giver of life when no man would ever
want to lie with her . . . unless she were the last
living woman in the band or kept that ridiculous
tent of bedding over her! Or unless Torka
rescinded his ruling about brothers and sisters not being
allowed to mate; Dak would take his beloved sister
to his fire circle no matter what she looked
like.
"Larani, new woman of this band, come forth!"
Now it was Torka who summoned the new woman, but
Larani did not respond. The People stared, waiting,
then began to worry. To break with the tradition of their
ancestors on a sacred night would not be a good thing.
Feeling the intense heat of the ceremonial
fire at his back, Torka understood the young
woman's fear of the flames. Ignoring the
murmurings of his band, and without regard to tradition,
he went to her and continued the ceremony away from the
flames.
"Is this the new woman who stands before the headman of the
People?"
Larani did not answer. Eneela held out the
soiled skins upon which her daughter had shed first
blood. "Here is the blood of my child Larani."
Torka accepted the soiled skins. Custom now
demanded that the new woman take them from him and throw
them into the fire as a symbolic offering up of the death
of her childhood. He knew that she would balk, and
she did not disappoint him. His heart ached for her.
"In this new land you are the first girl to come to her time
of blood," he reminded quietly. "This is a
great honor and a great gift."
"It is of no use to me."
"Like it or not, Larani, you
have
become a woman. In the Valley of the Great
River the People will not dishonor the ways of their
ancestors by ignoring the traditional ceremonies that
must be made in honor of the new woman and of
all that she represents."
"I represent nothing," she replied in absolute
dejection. "Swan and Naya should have been first. That
was what the forces of Creation wanted when they sent
Daughter of the Sky after me. You should not have interfered.
Forgive me, Torka, for speaking so, but the
ancestors would have let me die at the hands of my
father. By forcing him to let me live, you have dishonored
them . . . and him and me."
Those words struck at him, as suddenly, with an
upward movement, her uninjured arm raised the tent
of fur and cast it away. Naked in the night and the
cold, Larani stood boldly and defiantly in the
golden, leaping glimmer of the ceremonial fire as
her people cried out at die sight of her.
"You see?" she hissed at Torka. "This is a
waste of good firewood! The child Larani has already
been offered to the fire." Her words were slow,
slurred, as though her tongue had grown too large
for her mouth. "Do you all see what I have been
hiding from your eyes these past moons? Yes,
Torka has saved this life! Yes, it
has
lived on to bleed as a woman! But do not be fooled.
Despite all of Naya's care of this
woman's body, it is dead, killed long ago
by Daughter of the Sky!"
Once again there was low, troubled talk in the council
hut within the Valley of the Great River. The men
sat in a solemn circle to decide how to deal with
Larani.
"This man is ashamed," Simu said, anguished.
"No fe
male of this band has ever behaved so outrageously.
Perhaps it is time to give Larani back to Daughter
of the Sky." Simu's face was set, unforgiving, and
yet his voice cracked when he spoke, and there was a
half-wild look in his eyes that begged to be
gentled, to be relieved, to be proved wrong.
"No!" Dak was furious with his father. "Death is no
suitable chastisement for Larani. Her burns are
healing, she is walking on her own, and soon she will
have the full use of her arm. She is not a sickly
child or a doddering elder who might, by tradition, be
considered a burden and thus be put out of the band
to die."
"You are right, old friend," said Umak. "It would be
an offense to the forces of Creation to waste the life
of a potential child bearer."
Beside him, Manaravak seemed perplexed.
"She is not so bad ugly as I thought she would
be-or as she thinks she is. Half a head
burned, one arm and shoulder, and part of her upper
back . . . but most of her face is still a face,
and she has both eyes and ears and a fine, strong
woman's body and breasts that-was
"Watch what you say of my sister!" Dak snapped
with unbridled menace.
Manaravak shrugged affably. "No offense meant.
Your sister is a fine new woman-even if she is
burned around the edges."
"Why you-to " Dak lurched across the fire at
Manaravak before anyone could intercept him.
Manaravak did not move from where he sat. He
reached up and repelled Dak's attack by shoving his
open hands hard upon Dak's shoulders. The son of
Simu was propelled back across the fire into a
seated position. He landed with a grunt of
surprise.
As Grek hastily reassembled the scattered
contents of the fire pit, Manaravak shook his head
with calm disparagement and resumed speaking as though
nothing had happened. "All the time you are too much
angry, Dak. Talk does not come easy to me.
You all know this. But Larani, I think that
she is like a wounded animal that is just regaining
strength, and fears that her life will not be all that it
once was. I think that when she spoke bad words
to her people, it was out of pain and uncertainty, as an
injured animal cries out in fear when it is
cornered."
"You should know!" Despite himself, Dak regretted
his
nastiness. Lashing out at Manaravak had became
instinctive with him; yet this time the man had shown a
deeply insightful compassion. Was this the side of
Manaravak that Demmi loved? The question loosed
rage in him.
Torka saw it and raised a warning hand. "Stay where
you are, Dak. If we cannot speak rationally among
ourselves, how can we condemn the new woman for speaking
irrationally against us?"
Silence settled. In the central fire pit, little
clods of dung and sod slumped and sparked.
"We have heard no words of wisdom from our supreme
elder," said Umak. "You must share your thoughts with us,
Bison Man . . . Man Who Has Placed
Two Spears in Three Paws . . . First Man
to Test the River."
Grek stared at the shaman, and suspicion
sparked in his little eyes. Then, beguiled by the oiling of
his ego, he sat back and grunted with pleasure.
"Grek says that the father of Larani must speak to his
daughter, yes. Bring her back into your pit hut,
Simu. It is not good for her to live alone. We
males must overlook the crazy spirits that come into a
female's head at certain times of the moon."
"There is no moon now, old man," reminded
Simu blackly.
"Old man?
Bah!
This man hunts like a lion! This man charged Three
Paws and drove the great bear away! This man found
the way across the river. And this man would not turn his child
out of the band to die!"
Simu eyed the old man with contempt. "You have shown
us all how brave you are with the discipline of your
granddaughter! It was her disobedience that caused Three
Paws to attack the women at the lake! And it was
her disobedience that called down Daughter of the Sky
to turn upon my Larani in the first place."
Grek was clearly taken aback. "My little Naya
is not being discussed here! It is a bad thing you ask,
Simu-very bad. This old heart will not consent
to abandoning Larani-or any member of this
band-ever."
Torka felt suddenly tired. He felt suddenly
cold. Grek was right. Simu was right. Somewhere within
all of that conflicting rightness there had to be an answer
to the terrible dilemma of the night. Torka's eyes
moved to Simu. No one had ever doubted that
Larani, who so resembled his beloved Eneela, had
always been his favorite child. How could he
now insist upon her death . . . unless he believed that
for the good of all, it must come to pass?
Torka's brow came down. Might a time ever come
when he, Torka, would be adamant in his insistence that
one of his own children should be put out of the band to die?
"Never." The word came without the slightest
hesitation. "No one-least of all that poor girl-will
be put out of this band to die as long as I am
headman."
Simu snapped to his feet. The entire hut
shook as his head came in contact with the antler-and
bone-braced ceiling. He cursed sharply against
unexpected pain, and his hands flew upward to soothe
his injury. "How can Larani live with the shame of such
hideous scars andwiththe pain that they bring to her spirit and
to her pride? Every day and night of her life she will
know the agony of humiliation and be tortured
by memories of what she once was!"
Torka measured Simu grimly. A new insight
into the man made him scowl with revulsion. "I see.
But tell me, who is more humiliated by your
daughter's scars, Simu-Larani or you?"
Torka's question struck Simu like a spear hurled
into his gut. He stared. "I ..." And suddenly,
shamed by the truth, he covered his face with his hands,
seated himself heavily, and wept like a child.
Torka felt the eyes of Dak, Grek, and his
sons upon him. He had had enough discussion. "The
council is ended. Larani will stay with her people. If
any of you question my decision, remember this: The forces
of Creation sent Daughter of the Sky to burn
Larani and throw her into the river like a flaming torch.
We were led to a safe crossing because Grek went after
the girl. We live in this good land because of Larani's
pain. If she can endure it, then for her sake, so
must we. For without Larani, not one of us would be
alive to sit here in this hut discussing her fate!"
The dark days passed as one. Snow fell heavily
within the Valley of the Great River and upon the
surrounding hills and mountain ranges. Under
Torka's leadership, the members of the band did their
best to put aside their differences as they
endured the endless cold and storms.
In the pit hut of Umak, Snow Eater went
into labor and broke water on Honee's
favorite sleeping skin. Honee carried the dog
to the hut of blood "where all babies of the band must
come forth!" The girls were allowed to watch as the young
bitch strained and panted and the women did what they could
do to soothe her ... to no avail.
"A first baby is always the hardest," observed
Lonit, kneeling close, rubbing the dog's back
as Summer Moon looked on and, no doubt, thought
of her own coming child.
lana raised a knowing brow. "The pups must be born
soon, or they will die."
Larani looked at Naya. "Have you a medicine
drink that will hurry her labor?"
Naya nodded. "Thousand-leaf and bearberry boiled in
water in which ..."
"No!" Demmi peered in. Shaking snow from her
head and shoulders and bare hands, she scooted forward
on her knees. "There's no time to boil a brew,
Naya! Stand aside everyone. I know what to do!"
"You are not a medicine woman," Naya protested.
"No? We will see!" Demmi looked at Swan
with a telling wink. "I delivered you,
Sister, when I was not much more than a baby myself. I
just reached in with a slim arm, just as I will reach in now
with a slim hand."
One by one, with Demmi's assistance, the pups came
forth until there were ten little bloodied forms lying beside
Snow Eater on the grass. Li cried because the first
pup was stillborn, but soon she was smiling as Snow
Eater nosed her new brood and licked them clean
and dry as they rolled about, as blind and tiny as baby
bears.
"Companion will be proud of his offspring!" said
Demmi to Snow Eater.
The children ran off to bring fresh grasses from the nearest
in-camp storage pit and shouted their news to the men
and boys.
At Li's insistence, the body of the stillborn pup
was taken out from camp and Umak spoke shaman's
words over it as the People gathered around to watch Li
reverently place the tiny body to look upon the sky
forever.
That night wolves howled close to camp, and Li
awoke trembling.
"They have come for Little Dog!" she cried.
"No, my little one," Umak assured her. "The
life spirit of the pup is safe in the sky.
No wolf can harm it."
But the next day, in the midmorning darkness, he went
out from camp to check the site of the pup's abandonment.
Because of the falling snow, it was with skill and patience that
he uncovered the tracks of the wolves.
They are too close to camp,
he thought. He found no sign of the pup. There was no
doubt in his mind that the wolves had eaten it ...
until he discovered other tracks- big, deep.
Wanawut?
His blood went cold at the thought of them. His
gloved hand tried to define the tracks, but it seemed
that they had been deliberately marred by heavy
scuffing.
"You also come looking to see if wolves are too
near camp?" Umak looked up, startled, to see
Manaravak standing over him. "Wind speaks of
storm, Umak. We should go back now."
An evasiveness in Manaravak's manner put
Umak on edge. "Did you rub out the other
tracks?"
"What other tracks?"
"These!"
Manaravak shrugged and leaned down. "Bear maybe.
Or lion. Hard to say. I have not seen
them before. Come, before weather closes in. We must
advise Torka to tell the People to be on the lookout
for wolves."
Under Torka's leadership, the men baited for
wolves, and after three animals were caught and
skinned, no more of their land were seen or heard within the
immediate proximity of the encampment.
Despite the hunters" success, the sound of howling
beasts
entered Naya's dreams. She had been sleeping
deeply, dreaming happily of suckling pups and
dancing dolls until, awakened by a dull ache at
the base of her neck, she lay still, listening to distant
wolf song. Their song seemed strange, almost
human, and Naya shivered, thinking of the wanawut.
She tried to return to her dreams, but a sudden
craving for berries sent her creeping from the sleeping
furs that she shared with Yona.
Her movement woke lana. "Naya? What are you
doing, girl?"
"Nothing!" she replied, and wondered why she had
felt the need to lie. It took only a moment
to reach the sack of berries. She took out a handful,
ate it, then scurried back into , her bed furs.
Naya slept like the dead until, slowly,
dreams unfolded within her mind: strange,
disconnected dreams of wolves and men running wild
across the land ... of the wind, alive and breathing inside
her-
a
warm wind that flowed within her veins and swelled within her
breasts and loins until they throbbed with pleasure.
She opened herself wide, moving, dancing, thrashing
madly. The dream thickened. Wolves and men were
running side by side, chasing her, but no matter how
fast she ran, she could not escape. They were on her
now, wolves with the faces of men-of Umak and
Manaravak- and then, suddenly, no longer men or
wolves at all.
"Wanawut!" she screamed as they straddled her and
set themselves to consume her.
She fought them, but they had her on her back and were
holding her by her wrists. The wind poured out of her,
to leave her weak. The wanawut became one beast-a
single, writhing, roaring, two-headed male organ that
licked between her thighs, penetrated her, filled her.
Screaming, she thrashed violently to be free of it,
but like Snow Eater, she was trapped-mated-and the male
thing was locked fast and swelling until it was choking
her, suffocating her, lifting her as it
extruded through her nose and eyes and ears as her
body exploded. And in its place lay a mass of
caul-slimed pups squirming in a mess of
bloodred afterbirth.
"No!" she shrieked, flailing wildly against the
hands that held her wrists pressed tight to her bed
skins. . . .
"Naya! What is it, Little Girl?"
"By the forces of Creation, Yona, bring the shaman!
Perhaps he can help!"
Staring up through plummeting blackness and horror,
Naya saw lana and Grek looking down at her with
terror and confusion.
"Am I dead?" she asked, slowly realizing that it
was Grek who was holding her down.
His hands released on her wrists, andwitha convulsive
sob of relief he pulled her into his arms and
began to rock her and stroke her head. "No, my
Little Girl! You were only dreaming."
She was suddenly ice-cold and shivering
uncontrollably. "I have not had puppies?"
lana's ragged sigh expressed her own relief.
"No, girl! Of all the things to ask!"
Naya closed her eyes, leaned close to Grek,
and held him tight.
"Grek! What is it?" Umak entered the pit hut
after Yona. "Yona said that Naya is dying!"
Naya did not mean to scream, but when she looked up
at Umak, she saw not the shaman but the leering face
of the beast.
"No! Get away from me! Get away!" she
cried, and buried her face in Grek's chest.
"Don't let him touch me, Grandfather! Please,
don't let him get me!"
Stunned, Umak drew back.
By now the hide door flap of Grek's hut was being
held back as the headman peered in. Every member
of the band pushed close at his back, trying to see
inside.
"What has happened?" asked Torka.
Frowning, lana shook her head. "Naya has had
a bad dream."
Naya pressed closer to Grek. The dream was
gone. She felt foolish. Carefully, she
ventured a look toward Umak. "I am all right
now," she whispered.
"Rest easily, girl." lana's voice was tight
with concern. "I will fix you something to drink. Or perhaps
you would like one of your berries to-was
"No!" Naya was adamant. "No
berries!" And she promised herself that in the future
she would be more careful in her use of new foods and
unfamiliar medicines.
Naya stood alone outside Grek's pit hut and
watched the hunters and the dogs disappear into the distances
of the winter dark. Snow Eater was hunting with
Companion again.
Naya sighed and hugged herself within her furs. It was a
very special morning! There had been blood on her
undertunic this morning when she had awakened.
Since the night of her terrible dream, she had tried
to do without eating the berries; but her breasts ached, her
head hurt, and she found herself dreaming of the fruit
by night and salivating for them by day. She was not certain
when she had begun to find contentment in sucking on the
berry-bead necklace that Manaravak had made for
her. lana had caught her at it and had told her
to stop. She had tried, but soon the little dried
fruits had been chewed flat. She missed their
oily sweetness; she missed the lovely way the
berries made her feel. Not wishing to rouse
lana's temper, Naya nibbled on her small
supply of forbidden fruit when the woman wasn't
looking.
When lana had been out, Naya had
rummaged through the woman's bag of sewing supplies
and decorative trims and had taken all the
berries that she could find. Good sense made her put
back enough so that lana would not notice the theft. The
rest had gone into her own sewing pouch. Now the bag was
almost always at her side. No one thought anything of
it: Women and girls always kept their sewing
supplies close by.
She stared off, chewing on a berry, waiting for the
sun, wanting to see it on this most special of
mornings-her first sunrise as a woman! Yes,
let the sun rise in celebration of this momentous
occasion! But the sun did not rise. The sun would not
know Naya's secret. No one knew-not Umak,
not even lana. She had said nothing when she had
discovered she was bleeding. She had risen quietly,
pulled on her overdress and winter coat, and
folded her sleeping skins over the stain that would
forevermore mark the place where Little Girl had died.
And then she had crept from the pit hut in triumph.
Now, as she stood with one of Yona's buckskin
dolls secured between her thighs to absorb the truth of
her condition, she chuckled low in her throat. lana
would be furious if she ever found out. Grek's
woman had made such a fuss about what must
and must not be done when her time of blood arrived.
lana had even prepared a special collection of
woman skins and set them aside for Naya, but
Naya would not use them. Her flow was very light; the
doll would easily draw it in.
Little Yona was always misplacing her dolls. No
one
would find it strange that one of them was missing again.
lana would scold Yona for being careless, Yona would
cry, and Naya would make it up to the child by making her
another doll . . . and another one after that . . . and
in this way she would keep her secret, lest lana
drive her out of her grandfather's hut and into the bed
skins of Umak or Manaravak.
She shivered, remembering the horrific nightmare.
Trembling, she vowed that she would never be mated-never!
"Naya . . . ?"
Startled, Naya turned to see that Manaravak had
come to stand beside her. He moved closer and lightly,
tentatively rested a broad, ungloved hand upon
her shoulder. It was apparent that he was afraid that she
might scream or run away in horror at his
touch. When she did neither, his hand relaxed. "I have
a gift for you."
She did not know what motivated her, but
she leaned toward him and told him a secret. "I
have asked your brother Umak to bring back red
berries for me from the cache pits.
Shhh.
Say nothing, or lana will find out! My berries
are almost gone. They are all I need, all I
want. Look-see what has become of the fine
necklet that you made for me?"
She reached up and opened her winter coat so that he
might see her poor, chewed-up, dehydrated string
of berry beads sagging against her bare throat.
"I have made you something better than this," he said as
he reached out, ran a finger down her throat, and then
reached around her neck and under her hair to loosen the
thong and draw the adornment away.
"No!" Her hands closed around his wrists.
But the necklet came away in his left hand. She
released her grip, and Manaravak fumbled in his
surplice and came up with something that made her
exclaim with delight.
"Helping Spirit!" she cried in instant recognition.
"I have carved an image of him out of antler bone."
Pleased, Naya slipped this extraordinary gift
over her head. "Oh, Manaravak!" She sang out
his name as, standing on tiptoe, she reached up
to throw her arms around him with childlike delight. His
smile was explosive as his hands went around her
waist. He lifted her off the ground and held her
high. "You like this gift I bring?"
"I like!"
He laughed and drew her down. He looked
straight into her eyes until she moved unashamedly
to kiss his closed, and
when this was done, she kissed him on both sides of his
unhooded face. She kissed him on his forehead,
on his nose, and on his chin. She kissed him on his
lips. And suddenly, after a sighing, yielding moment
in which she pressed herself against him and opened her mouth in
invitation to his tongue, she suddenly remembered her
nightmare dream of mating and stiffened like a terrified
little fish and wriggled ferociously to be free of the
loving net of his fingers. He was forced to set her
down, and with her hand curled protectively over her
new talisman, she wheeled and disappeared into the
shelter of old Grek.
He stood a moment, perplexed but not unhappy. His
hand strayed to his mouth. She had kissed him! She
had run away from him, but she had kept his gift, and
she
had
kissed him. And
how
she had kissed him! He smiled as he turned
to look off across the dark distances into which his brother had
vanished with the others.
Bring her back berries if this is what she has
asked of you, but your gift will mean nothing now that she
has taken mine. Helping Spirit will turn her heart
to Manaravak, and even without its magic, her kiss
has told me a truth that she has yet to speak: that
she is already mine!
"Do not assume too much."
He turned. "How long have you been standing there,
Demmi?"
"Too long."
He heard the contempt in her voice and stood tall
and defensive against it. "She will be mine. You will
see. When she becomes a woman, Naya will
choose Manaravak over Umak."
"Too bad for you."
He stared at her. Her look had a cutting edge,
and he felt sliced by it. "My sister Demmi
does not like the granddaughter of Grek."
"No, Demmi does not like the granddaughter of
Grek."
"Why?"
"Except for lana and me, I think that everyone
likes Naya. And I think that Naya likes
everyone . . . except lana and me. That is one of
many things that I do not like about her."
"You have become a sour-tongued, hard-eyed woman,
Demmi."
"I am not like the granddaughter of Grek."
"No. You are not like my Naya."
"Your Naya? Is that what you think? Your sister
Demmi is hard eyed and sour tongued, but what is
Naya when she leaps into your arms all soft eyed as
she opens her sweet mouth to your kiss? Hmmph!
You must ask Umak when he returns to camp.
Yes. You must ask our brother if he finds her as
pleasing as you do when she flies into
his
arms like a happy little bird with her sweet mouth open
and her soft tongue speaking his name and her eyes full
of wanting."
A hollow opened in his gut. "Umak?"
She exhaled her annoyance through flared nostrils.
"Open your eyes, Brother. I saw them together before
Umak left with the other hunters. Poor Umak.
Poor Manaravak. How can the headman's
sons be so gullible? I wonder what our brother
is thinking now as he does her bidding in the winter
dark? Frankly, I do not think that she wants either
of you, but she will have you at each other's throats
nonetheless if this goes on much longer. And you ask me
why I do not like her!" bar

The footprints of ravens overlay the tracks of the
bear. No sign or omen could have been worse. The
hunters stopped to stare in disbelief at the size of the
blue depressions filled with starlight in the snow.
They knew these tracks. They had all seen them
before.
"Three Paws ..." Torka exhaled the name.
"I see no sign of her cubs, but she has come out
of the burned land and now finds her meat by raiding the
cache pits of the People!"
"Four ransacked cache pits," Dak grated.
"If the greedy thief has done the same to the
others-was
"Do not even think it!" Umak warned Dak
to silence. Yet he thought it. If the bear had
gotten to all their cache pits, the band had little chance
of surviving the winter. When they found the fifth cache
pit untouched, the men paused in a driving
wind and heavy snow to thank the spirits of this world and the
next. It was one of the largest caches of all.
"We will return with more sledges," said Torka,
knowing that there was too much food in this pit for three men
and a pair of dogs to transport.
"Let us check one more of the caches," the shaman
suggested. "The one to the west of this one had good caribou
filets and extra sinew and kindling and some dried
fruits that might make our women smile."
Torka saw no reason to deny Umak's request.
"If we find another of our cache pits intact,
that will be reason enough to smile."
They found it in a driving snow . . . and there was
cause to smile, as later the People ate the meat that was
brought to them. Lest the women and children worry
unnecessarily, the hunters made no mention of the
great bear.
In the snow-driven night, Honee looked up from
plaiting little Li's hair and smiled as Naya
ducked into Umak's pit hut. "What brings you to the
shelter of the shaman and his family?"
"I ... have brought a healing marrow broth for the
shaman's woman so that your body may drive away
your coughing."
"How kind you are, Little Girl! Come,
sit and talk with this woman awhile. Look at you!
You comare growing up so fast that it is hard to believe
that you are not yet a woman! Umak, take the
outercoat of our guest and bring a fresh fur from the
stores for our Naya to sit on while we chat."
Umak obliged, piqued that Honee was blithely
ordering him around in the presence of the girl, but Naya
seemed not to notice. She was smiling at him out of
her doelike face, and after handing her bladder flask
of medicine drink to Honee, she slipped off her
hooded coat and handed it to him with secrets in her
eyes: secrets of a shared kiss, of soft arms around
his neck, andofa promise that he had made to bring her
a fresh supply of tiny red berries.
He smiled as he folded her furred coat and
drew in the scent of it as he laid it alongside his
own. Odd-it had the scent of woman ... a woman
in her time of blood! But that was impossible. The thought
drifted as he left the coat, handed Honee the
dry fur for Naya, and then seated himself with Jhon
on the man side of the hut's central cooking
fire. He had been teaching the boy how to secure a
stone blade into the notched end of a long bone. Jhon
had already picked
up the way of it and wanted to finish the work
by himself. Umak saw no cause to object; he would
rather look at Naya.
The shaman smiled with bliss as he gazed at her.
He imagined how it would be if she were a part of his
family. The imagery increased his feeling of
ecstasy. Umak grew warm with love-and lust-just
looking at her, longing for the time when a moment like this would
end with the girl naked and happy to be beside him beneath his
bed furs. He closed his eyes, allowing himself the
luxury of indulging his fantasy until Honee's
voice startled him back into reality.
"Wake up, my man! Where are your manners? Our
guest is leaving."
Umak was immediately on his feet and reaching for her
coat.
Naya thanked Honee for her hospitality.
"Drink deeply of the medicine when you wake, and then
three times more until you are ready to sleep again. The
thousand-leaf in the broth should ease the tightness of your
breath."
"You
are
a sweet child, Naya! just like your grandmother Wallah.
Won't I be lucky if you choose Umak to be
your man when the time comes for you to do so?"
"Will you come to live with us, Naya?" Li was
overjoyed. "Would you be my big sister?"
"We are already band sisters," replied Naya. "So
you may think of me as your big sister right now if it
pleases you."
Evasiveness?
Umak frowned, then castigated himself. He handed her
coat back to her and, after shoving his feet into his
moccasins, took up his own coat and escorted her
out.
"That was thoughtful of you, Naya," he told her when
they were outside. "Since the fire, Honee is
often in great discomfort, but she would never complain of
it."
She stood very still before him, very tense, as though waiting
for something. Then: "Yes. It is good to have the healing
way."
"Wallah would be proud of you."
"Yes."
"I often think of her, you know. Bold, brave old
Wallah. Just like Grek. They were a pair, those
two! I often-was
"Umak ... I ... have you brought my berries from the
cache pits?"
He heard the impatience in her voice and
felt foolish. "Yes. Here." He reached into his
coat and withdrew a small
skin sack that he had attached to the inner lining with a
bone pin.
Her eager hand shot out and grabbed it.
"I hope there will be enough for your needs."
She froze. "Needs? What do you mean?" she
asked defensively.
"Enough berries to trim the gift that you said you are
making for lana."
"Gift . . . Oh, yes, the baby carrier!"
She was reaching eagerly into the sack, taking up
several berries and popping them into her mouth.
"Slowly now . . . not too many," she said,
obviously to herself. Then: "Oh, Umak, what
if
there are not enough to last ... I mean, for lana's
present."
"There are more in the other pits."
"And you would bring me more?"
"If you have need of them."
"I do! I mean, it is a very big baby carrier."
She sighed. "Oh, Umak, how can I ever thank you
for bringing my berries to me?"
"Be my woman when it is time."
She put a mittened hand to her mouth and made a vain
attempt at composure. "Umak's woman ..."
She laughed.
He was confused and did not like the sound of her laughter;
he sensed that it might be at his expense. Annoyed,
he drew her close and, to his surprise, felt
her go lax in his arms.
"Naya? Are you all right?"
Still holding the sack of berries, she put both hands
against his chest and shoved back a little so that she could
look directly into his face. "I am not
afraid with you," she said, "not like with Manaravak."
Her hood had fallen back. Snow fell upon her
face and blew into her hair to shine like white stars
shivering against the blackness of a winter sky. "Naya
..." He caught his breath at her beauty, too
much in love even to think of kissing her. It was enough
to hold her, to look at her, to know in his heart that she
would soon be his. "Say it! Tell me that you will
choose me. You will never regret it, my Naya.
Never!"
Her head fell forward as she slumped against his chest.
"Umak, my Umak." She seemed to sleep for a
moment and then, with a giggle, she stood very straight and
shivered. "It is cold. I am tired.
I will go home."
Days of darkness passed. Storms swept across the
valley. Then, under a new moon that was only
occasionally visible through icy, wind-torn clouds,
old Grek stirred his aching bones and sauntered out
to join the other men in the council hut while little
Yona began to cry for her doll.
"Another doll is lost!" she wept.
"But I see it there on your furs." lana pointed
out.
"Not the new one that Naya made me!" the child whined in
exasperation. "One of the old ones. The big one with the
stone-beaded eyes. It is lonely and lost in the
snow!"
"Then you should not have taken it outside." lana was
clearly on edge.
"I did
not
take it outside."
"Then it is here in the hut somewhere."
"No, I have looked everywhere!"
lana sighed and reached out to hug her daughter. "You
must be more careful of your dolls, Yona, and then they
will not be lost."
The girl looked grim and angry.
Naya, sitting cross-legged on her bed furs in
the dull, foul-smelling light of lana's tallow
lamp, frowned as she secretly sucked a
dehydrated berry and wondered how many of Yona's
dolls would have to disappear before either the child or the woman
caught on to her thefts. Her frown deepened as she
watched Yona gather up all five of her dolls,
set them firmly onto her bed furs, and then tie
them together with a string of sinew.
"You will be safe now!" the child assured her dolls.
"Yona is a good mother, isn't she, Naya!"
Naya exhaled a sigh, lay on her side, and
curled up into a ball against the cramps that gripped
her belly. One berry was no longer enough to relieve
the pain that came with the rising of the moon and the gushing of
her woman's blood. When she was certain that lana
was not watching, she took three more berries from her
pouch and put them into her mouth.
"Oh, good!" cried Yona, scooting close in the
shadowed gloom of the little hut. "You have taken out your
sewing pouch! Are you going to make another doll for
me?"
"Not now, Yona." Naya closed her eyes. The
expected rush of light-headedness came almost
instantly.
"Are you sick, Naya?" Yona asked.
The question caused lana to turn her head. "Are you also
feeling unwell, Naya?"
Naya did not reply. The dangerously meaningful
also
told her exactly where lana's question would lead if
she allowed it. Swan was not feeling well. All
of the signs foretold that the headman's youngest daughter
was about to shed new-woman's blood.
"Naya is asleep," said Yona.
lana was silent for a moment.
"Hmmm
... it is not unusual for girls to come to their time of
blood at the same time. No one knows why it is
so, but often the new moon brings the blood of a
woman and the birth of children." She yawned and lay
down, settling herself into her furs.
Naya felt frightened. Did lana suspect the
truth? She would be furious! There must be some taboo
broken when a girl kept her bleeding a secret from
the band lest she be forced to make the choices among
suitors and accept the responsibilities of a
woman! But now the sweet residue of the berries
oiled her mouth and seemed to be flowing thickly in her
veins, taking all worry with it as she
drifted into a dark and dreamless sleep.
For a long while the woman of Old Lion lay
awake. lana was troubled. Yona was obsessed with
her missing dolls. Was it possible that she had
actually
not
lost them? But what else could have happened to them?
She closed her eyes, and as she felt the child within her
womb stir against her palm, she smiled with contentment
and fell asleep knowing that when this baby was born it
would be summer . . . and in the depth of the winter dark,
under the cold light of a new moon with yet another
storm building outside, there could be no sweeter
thought than this.
?"

"Soon the cache pits will all be empty."
Torka whispered his fears to Lonit as another
storm settled in over the Valley of the Great
River and they lay bundled together in each other's
arms within their sleeping skins. "It feels as though
we have gone to ground ... as though we were a band of
squirrels or voles or bears."
She snuggled close. "I am glad that we are

bears. I would be sleeping with only my youngest
cubs, then. I love my children, but it is much better
to go to ground with you!"
He was too distracted by his worries to be
amused. "The land around this once-good camp has been
hunted clean of meat. There is animosity among
our people, Lonit. Like a bad smoke, it stinks of
singed feelings and burned pride and of dissension among the
families."
"The time of the long dark cannot last forever, Man of My
Heart. Everything will be better when the weather is
warmer and the days of light return."
"And the mammoth ... I have not heard its
trumpet-ings in so long."
"Who can hear anything in all of this winter wind and
driving snow? Our totem grazes with its kind in the
wind-protected foothills. I am sure of it."
"How can you know unless you have seen it? I fear that it
has gone east, into the great white mountains."
"You cannot be certain of that," she told him, then added
with more than a hint of bemused contrariness, "unless
you
have seen it!"
"Fair enough," he conceded.
They lay very still, very quietly, listening to the
wind hurling snow against the pit hut as Swan and
Sayanah slept deeply within their own bed furs in
the darkness of the unlighted hut.
Then Lonit, knowing the mind of her man by the tension that
she felt in his body, propped herself onto an
elbow and
looked at him with grave concern. "There is still too
much snow on the ground to think of breaking camp and
following!"
"Yes," he agreed, "there is too much snow."
She sighed with relief. "I am glad. There are
pregnant women in this camp. Honee is still not
fully recovered from the fire, nor is Larani.
And I worry about old Grek. lana tells me
that he sleeps for hours like a fevered child, and often when
he is awake, he pretends to sleep so that he will
not have to move and will not take so much as a sip of any
of the pain-eating brew that Naya has offered to make
for him. It would be a bad thing if he had to travel
now, in this cold and darkness."
Torka knew that she was right. And yet so many
compromises had been made on behalf of the old
man-too many, perhaps. He exhaled restlessly.
Wanting to change the subject, he spoke of
mundane things-the new clothes that she was
making for her family, of the baby carrier she was
secretly constructing for Summer Moon, and the way
that Sayanah was mastering the use of his new snow
walkers.
She moved, laid her finger across his mouth. "You
see? The time of the long dark is not all bad in this
snug, warm camp that you have made for your people. We
eat a little, sleep a lot, and there is also much time
for this. ..." She bent her head to kiss the worry
lines from his brow, and then she kissed his mouth. It was
a long, deep kiss of loving invitation to share warmth
and pleasure. "Oh, yes, this woman finds it
pleasing to go to ground with you."
"Even after all of this time together?"
She dimpled. "Old Grek says that many things
improve with age. In your case, I would
definitely agree."
"I am not certain that it is such a good idea to listen
to old Grek. Do not forget that Bison Man
prefers his meat soft and spoiled."
Lonit suppressed a teasing smile. Her hand
strayed downward over Torka's belly. "As for this
woman, I like mine hot and hard and
now
comt is, if you are able!"
Despite himself, he laughed at her challenge.
"If?"
Her hand was warm. It knew him well and worked him for
his pleasure and her own as he drew her down and
told her that he loved her.
"Always and forever?"
"Always and forever!"
I
"Show me ... but show me quietly. This is no time
to wake our cubs."
He found no difficulty in obliging. It was good
love-making-it was always good with Lonit-and when her
challenge was met and won, they slept contentedly in
each other's arms.
Torka's dreams were of his youth and of only good things-
until he heard the howling of the beast wanawut and
woke with a start. Had it been real? No. He
closed his eyes.
A nightmare vision rose beneath his lids. A vision
of the wanawut walking with Manaravak across the land,
hunting with Manaravak, bending beside Manaravak and
then turning to stare at Torka for a moment before crouching
to feed with Manaravak upon the bloodied body of ...
the
fourth
caribou. And somehow, in that moment, Manaravak and the
beast were one.
Breathless, Torka felt sick as he willed the
horror of the dream away. But it would not go. He
rose, pulled on his outercoat and winter moccasins,
and walked out into the night. He needed air. He
needed the brutal cold to sear his face and lungs and
make him know that he was awake and alive and not the
hapless victim of a nightmare that had made his very spirit
bleed.
But there was no peace to be found within the night. A
beast
was
howling in the winter wind. He had not dreamed the sound.
As Torka stared across the dark, snow-driven camp,
he saw his son. Manaravak stood alone at the
edge of camp. And Manaravak was howling.
Lonit wept with joy as her daughters Summer
Moon and Demmi came to join her in escorting
Swan to the hut of blood.
Summer Moon kissed her youngest sister. "May the
watching spirits of all of our female ancestors
smile on you as they have at last smiled upon me!"
Demmi came close and hugged Swan hard. "It
is about time!" she teased with a wink. "But
remember: Dak is mine!"
Swan looked at her sister thoughtfully. "Have you ever
really wanted him?"
Demmi shrugged. "Not really. But who else was there
for me? Besides, he is not so bad."
"He is wonderful," replied Swan, and blushed
as red as
the throat of a loon when Demmi clucked her
tongue, gave her a loving hug, and reminded her,
"He is
mine."
Later, as he watched the other women and girls
follow after his woman and daughters, Torka stood
tall and tried not to grin like a fool when his sons and the
men of the band came to congratulate him.
How proud he was! Three daughters, and all of
them women now . . . one with a baby growing within her,
and another with a three-year-old boy of her own. Where
had the time gone? Away . . . away with his youth.
It was as though someone had just splashed him with icy
water. He did not want to feel old. He did
not want to feel the weight of his age hovering above
him, mocking him out of the core of a man's pride,
waiting to descend upon his mind and body and do to him
what time was doing to poor old Grek.
"Come!" He raised his arm and summoned his sons
to him. "We will go out to the cache pits and bring more
meat, and maybe, if we find sign of the one who
walks on three paws, the pelt of that great thief
will honor the coming to womanhood of Swan."
Standing beside the hut of blood into which Swan had just
disappeared, Lonit wheeled, still holding the edge of the
cold flap in her hand. "No!" she cried.
He saw the fear in her eyes. Fear for her sons
or for him? He knew her well enough to know that it was the
latter. He glared at her. Did she think him
too old for such a hunt?
"It will be a good thing," he replied in cool
defiance. "If the forces of Creation smile upon us,
we may even feast upon the flesh of Three Paws
herself!"
He felt so bold, so filled with the vision of himself
standing against the great bear, that it took him a moment before
he realized that he had just broken one of the most
ancient taboos of his ancestors: He had named his
prey before he had set eyes upon it.
Everyone was staring at him aghast. Now, if he
hunted the great three-pawed bear, the animal would
know that he was coming.
His head went high. Let them stare. He
had stood against more fearful things than a three-pawed
bear in his time. He had faced wolves and rampaging
mammoth, woolly rhinos, bears, lions, and the
wrath of murderous magicians and marauding men . .
. and most fearful of all, he had stood
in the winter dark and had seen a son of his standing at the
edge of the encampment and howling into the storm like a beast.
The memory beat within his head like the hard, pounding,
painful strike of a war drum.
He was sick to death of memories, sick of winter
and somber faces and of bad dreams and ominous omens.
His totem may well have vanished into the great white
ranges to the east, but that didn't necessarily mean
that Life Giver had taken his luck with it. For
half a lifetime, all good things that had come to him had
come in the wake of the great tusker, but before that, had there
not been a time when he had been master of his own
luck? Yes!
He had lived long enough to know that he could face whatever
came on his own terms. Three Paws was out there
somewhere. If she was raiding the cache pits of the band,
he would see to it that she would become meat for his people.
If he had inadvertently provoked her spirit and
alerted it to his coming, what matter? She was an old
lame bear. It was time for her to die.
He was Torka. He was not old! He was not lame!
And he was not afraid to seek her out and kill her.
PART V
THE FOURTH CARIBOU
Luck.
The word ran around and around in Umak's head like a
fish circling in shallow water within one of the stone fish
traps of the women.
Just what
is
luck anyway?
The question bothered him as he walked behind the other
hunters. Breathless, he stopped and shook his head,
muttering to himself in a misery of conjecture. "Luck
is an invisible power that causes the forces of
Creation to smile upon a man. Yes, but if the power
is invisible, is it possible that a man might not know
if he has lost it until it is too late to win
it back?"
He shook his head. A shaman should not have to ask such
questions; a shaman should know the answers. But he did not
know them. He cursed, but that did nothing to relieve
his frustration as he watched his father striding ahead of
him with Manaravak and Grek. They took turns
dragging the sledge, empty of all but a
few provisions and the extra spears that would be needed
if the foray to the cache pit turned into a hunt as
Torka hoped it would.
Umak stopped. The others walked on, unaware that
he had fallen behind. As he watched his father, Umak
saw that the headman was walking across the snow as though his
snow prods and webbed snow walkers were a natural
extension of his arms and limbs. Umak felt a
son's pride. Everything that Torka did had power
and grace to it. Why then was Umak so troubled by doubt
as he watched him now?
Because he has allowed Grek to come along even though
he knows that the old one is unfit. Because he has
broken an ancient taboo by naming a specific
prey before actually sighting it.
"Wait!"
Dak's call caused him to turn around. "We had
all given up on you," the shaman said as the son of
Simu caught up with him.
"I had to go back to camp." Dak's face was a
mass of
glowers within the confines of his ruff as he stopped and
rammed his snow prods into the snow. "Demmi was
following me. I practically had to tie her down
to keep her from coming along."
"Why didn't you let her? She's as good a hunter
as you and I."
"Because if the truth be told, this trek to the cache
pits and challenging of the bear ... it worries me,
and I would not wish my woman to be in danger! And
Grek-not my father, not the boys-should have stayed behind with the
women and children. The old man will slow us down and hobble
any action that we may be called upon to take against
our prey-or in our own defense! Simu's not
happy, Umak. He took being left behind as a
personal insult. Torka seems set to challenge
and demean him at every turn these days."
"Do you feel no pity for Grek's pride? And should
Torka not have challenged your father when Simu wanted
to kill Larani?"
Dak made a sound of despair and frustration. "I
don't know, Umak. If I don't see the light
of day soon, I don't know what I'm going to think
or say about anything."
Umak released a spear pole and slung a
brotherly arm around Dak's broad, blocky
back. "We've both lived through long, bad winters
before. Perhaps a hunt is just what we need to get us
through it, eh?"
Dak was not in a mood to be cheered.
"I've never been through a winter like this. What kind
of a shaman are you, not to have known that the snow would grow so
deep that even though we have found the place where the
caribou pass the winter, we can't make it across the
valley and into the canyons to hunt them?"
"The Seeing Wind comes as it will! Sometimes it blows
true, sometimes it doesn't blow at all! I do
my best. What more can you ask of me? Even Grek
says he hasn't seen a winter like this one since he
was a boy."
"Grek was a boy at the beginning of time!"
"And Grek has survived to recount his experiences
to us. There is a very good chance that we will also survive
the days of this long dark winter. You, on the other hand,
may not, if you don't stop wheedling as though you were little
Kharn reaching out for Demmi's arms!"
Dak's face twisted against the unfortunate
comparison. "He's stopped crying for her," he said
sadly. "It's Swan he
wheedles for now. Your youngest sister is a better mother
to my boy than Demmi. Why can't she be more like
Swan, eh? And why can't Torka put his own
daughter in her place?"
"If she had a place, it would be up to you to keep
her in it! But Demmi has never been like
anyone but herself. You knew that when you took her to your
fire. And there was a time when you even liked it."
Dak's voice was flattened by his attempt
to control it. "She has changed toward me. Nothing
I do matters with her. But then everything seems to have
changed around me lately. Look around you, Umak.
Our people hunger in the winter dark. My sister
Larani weeps in silence for all of her lost
dreams . . . dreams of things that will never be for her in
this "fine, good" land to which your father has brought us. I
ask you, old friend, has he brought us here to live or
to die?"
Umak, refusing to hear another word, stalked on after
the others.
They reached the cache pit to find bear sign everywhere.
Nothing was left but a few tools and the makings for a
fire.
The hunters piled what was left of their supplies
on the sledge and knew that their last, good supply of
meat was buried in the one remaining cache pit... if
the three-pawed bear hadn't gotten to it, too.
On they walked. The wind was hard out of the north, and
snow was falling heavily when they found the last cache
pit. It was secure, untouched by the thieving bear.
"No way to track bear or anything else
in this snow," said Manaravak.
Torka knew that Manaravak was right. A blizzard
was closing in fast. With the wind rising, the air
temperature plummeting, and the snow turning land and
sky into a tumultuous sea of white, nothing was more
important now than survival. The men tipped the
sledge onto its side and, facing its solid
bottom to the wind, used it as a frame over which they
stretched a lean-to. Crawling inside, they were
glad to rest and wait out the storm. The hunters ate
their traveling rations and slept long and deeply.
When they awoke, the storm was still raging. Lying
close together, they spoke in low, easy tones.
Half daydreaming, Manaravak spoke his thoughts
aloud. "The skin of the great three-pawed bear would
make a fine gift for my Naya."
"She is not your Naya yet!" Umak reminded
him. "She will be for me. She has told me."
Manaravak was instantly wide-awake. "She
wears my talisman!"
"She couldn't. She told me that she is afraid of
you!"
"Her lips spoke not of fear to me when she put her
arms around me-was
"Stop!" Grek was furious. "You will not
put the name of Little Girl in your mouths to chew up and
spit out with your bad words! still will say to whose fire she
goes when she becomes a woman, yes!"
Dak shook his head disparagingly. his she ever becomes
a woman."
"She will come to her time soon enough," said Torka.
"And when she does, she will choose a man. You cannot
keep her by your side forever, Grek. And I will not
allow her to cause dissension between my sons."
"She has already done that," Dak remarked drolly.
"She has accepted a talisman from you?
When?"
pressed Umak.
Manaravak shrugged. "A carving of Helping Spirit.
She wears it at her throat since the last moon."
"I, too, have brought her gifts. She has said that
I am hers. Has she said as much to you?"
"No, but she has kissed me! A woman's
kiss!"
Dak reached out and laid a hand firmly on
Grek's forearm. "Make yourself useful, Old
Lion. Tell them to stop arguing. You are supreme
elder. Maybe they will listen to you."
They did. And soon they slept again. Grek
snored, sucking on the ruin of his
once-fine teeth as, hours later, Torka,
Umak, Manaravak, and Dak awoke to howling.
"Wolves ..." whispered Umak.
"No," Manaravak corrected his brother.
"Wanawut. A band of them, far off. Many deep,
male voices ... no females . . . yes . .
. maybe one or two . . . they were cold, seeking
shelter."
"We do not need you to translate for us!"
Manaravak ignored Dak. He cocked his head,
listening. "The wanawut are in the southern ranges
across the river. They howl into the storm. They hunger.
There is loneliness in their cries."
"Be careful, Manaravak," Dak drawled.
"Or we will start thinking that you are longing to be one of
them again."
"In a way I suppose I always
will
be one of them."
"Naya would not like to hear you say that," said Umak.
"The storm will be over soon," said Torka sharply,
wanting to halt the conversation. "As soon as the weather
permits, we'll start back for the encampment."
Beside him, old Crek smacked his lips and settled
more deeply into sleep.
"This trek has been too much for Old Lion."
Dak looked across the fur-covered mound of the sleeping
man as he spoke directly to Torka.
Torka nodded in agreement. "It is time for
Bison Man to become the woman watcher again. It
is my hope that this trek will help him to see this for
himself."
Dak was taken aback by this revelation. "Was this your
intention when you brought him along and insisted that Simu
stay behind to guard the camp?"
"It was," Torka spoke evenly, with a hint of a
query in his voice, as though he could not imagine that the
young man would have assumed anything else.

Swan raised her face to the sky as she was
escorted from the hut of blood by her mother. Once the
doeskins that were reddened by her first-time blood were
ritually burned in the ceremonial fire, her people would
rejoice and bring her gifts. She stood very still. The snow
fell straight and quietly as the headman spoke the
official words of welcome to the new woman.
"Swan, new woman of this band, come forth!" Swan
obeyed proudly, and a little sadly as she thought of
Larani and of how bitter this ceremony had been for
her. Briefly, she remembered a night
long ago when Naya, Larani, and she had clustered
upon a single sleeping pad within the hut of the headman.
They had talked all night about how it would be when they
were grown and new women at last, beautiful and proud
as they displayed themselves for all the band to see.
"All the men who look at me will be in love with
me!" Naya had sighed with delight at the
prospect of such universal admiration. "But I will
choose only the best of all-and only after he has
brought me many gifts and made me smile many
times!"
Swan could still hear Larani asking: "And who might
this man be?"
"I don't know yet! But he will have to hunt much,
kill more, and risk himself many times before I will smile
his way."
"I know who I want," Swan had confided
softly, longingly. "He won't have to do a thing
except hold out his hand and invite me to his
fire-I will come gladly."
"Yes, so it is with the man I will have," Larani had
agreed.
"Who is he?" Even in memory, Naya's
voice was petulant and impatient.
Swan could still remember the way Larani
had smiled and rolled onto her back and closed her
eyes. "If you don't know who is best, there's no
sense telling you anything."
"You aren't any fun, Larani! What about you,
Swan? Who do you want for your man?"
"It's a secret," Swan had responded with a
heart full of mirth. But there was no mirth in her
heart now as she knew that she still wanted the same
man and that he already had a woman and child at his fire.
Now, with a beaming Lonit at her side, she paused
before her father and listened as her mother spoke the words that
would end her childhood forever.
"Behold," said Lonit to Torka, holding out the
soiled skins that had absorbed the blood of
Swan's first menstruation. "Here is the blood of my
child Swan. That child is no more. The new woman who
stands before you now carries her name."
Torka accepted the skins and held them toward his
youngest daughter. "Is this the new woman who
answers to the name of Swan?"
"This new woman answers to the name of Swan," she
replied, pushing her memories of the past behind her,
glad for the happiness and pride that she saw in his
eyes. She wanted this moment to be perfect for herself
and the other members of the band, but especially for
her father. There was tension in him these days that troubled
her. If only the
winter would end! If only the caribou would come out of the
faraway hills and canyons! Perhaps, if this
second ceremony in the new land would go forward with
perfection, the forces of Creation would favor the People
once more. With her head high, she took the skins and
walked to the fire with them.
"New woman gives to the fire the blood of
Swan. That child is no more. This woman now answers
to her name."
As everyone waited with baited breath, she tossed her
offering into the fire, then turned and, with outstretched
arms, saluted her people and asked them to accept her as a
new woman of the band.
As one they spoke her name.
"Swan! Daughter of Torka and Lonit, sister
of Umak, Manaravak, Sayanah, Summer
Moon, and Demmi, and aunt to Jhon and Li and
Kharn! Come forth now to your people, Swan, so that the new
woman may be welcomed into her band!"
There was much happiness in the encampment of Torka that
night. Gifts were brought to the new woman, which were
set aside for the time when she would accept a man and have
a fire and pit hut of her own to tend.
Grek gave her a cooking lamp, and lana added a
collection of finely made wicks. From Simu and
Eneela came a new sleeping mattress wide enough
for two. From Lonit came the traditional gift of
kindling and an exquisitely made bow drill; a
symbolic passing on of fire and warmth from one
hearth to another. From her father came a woman's
knife. From her brothers came gifts of awls and
sewing needles. As with Lonit's gift of the bow
drill, the gifts from a brother to a sister were also
prescribed by custom and so, when Manaravak handed
Swan a set of thimbles made of depilated
caribou skin, she was surprised-as was everyone
else-when Naya snickered as though the offering were
somehow something that she would never have accepted from him.
The children of the band marched up to her with awkwardly
fashioned strings of stone beads and gifts that made
little sense to anyone but to them. Swan embraced each
and every child in turn and thanked them. The gifts were not
important; the gesture of concern and welcome behind
the act of giving was all that mattered.
"What a fine circle the new woman Swan will
someday make for a fortunate man of this band," said
Honee as she
placed her own gift of a beautiful matched
pair of horn drinking cups before Swan.
Swan flushed. Pleasure dissolved into remorse
within her. No man had spoken for her, nor was it
likely that any would until one of the boys was
eventually old enough. It would most likely be
Nantu. He was the eldest, although she found him to be
a single-minded, stubborn boy, and everyone knew that
he was infatuated with Nay a. Swan sighed. There
was only one male in this band whom she truly
desired- whom she had always desired.
Dak.
She looked briefly across the fire at him. Was
he waiting for a sign from her that would give him the
courage to speak the words of invitation that would cause
her to rise and say yes or no to him?
When Dak met Swan's eyes, it was with the warm
expression of a caring friend, not of a lover. He was not
going to ask for her. He would never ask for her.
Swan stared quickly down into her lap lest he, or
anyone else, see the tears of disappointment that
stung beneath her lids.
The People ate, sang songs, and told stories. When
no one was looking, Larani came out of Simu's
pit hut to sit as far from the fire as possible while
still being within earshot of the tales that old
Grek was weaving as intricately as any woman could
weave a snare net. In the darkness of the moonless
night, Larani let her hood fall back.
Starlight shimmered on her face until
Manaravak noticed her sitting alone and, acting
on a pang of pity, took it upon himself to bring meat
to her.
"Go away!" she demanded, cowering and pulling her
robe over her head.
He looked down at her for a moment before bending and
setting the food at her feet. "Why do you hide
away all the time, Larani?"
"Why?" The word curdled with bitterness.
"Yes. Why?" He repeated the question; it seemed
simple enough to him.
With an exhalation of unexpected anger, she cast
back her furs and glared at him defiantly.
"Take a closer look, son of Torka! Do you
still want to ask me why?"
He did not flinch. He stared. Her hair was growing
back in patches. Her burns had an odd, shiny
appearance-not like skin at all, but like some sort of
slick, polished, dark
stone. He cocked his head, lowered his brow, and reached
out to touch the burned part of her head. She
slapped his hand away so fast and hard that she hurt
him and herself.
"Ouch!" they cried in unison.
Everyone turned to stare.
A small, pitiful, moan came out of Larani.
"Well? Have you seen enough? Have you
all
seen enough?" She pulled the robe back over her
head.
Manaravak shrugged. "You are not so bad ugly as you
think, Larani."
"No? Would you take me to your fire? Would you name
me woman?" She snapped to her feet. She cast
the robe back again, allowing them all to look at her
in the starlight. "Would any man of this band have the
stomach to name me woman?"
The silence in the camp was total.
Manaravak was confused. Larani had changed; she
used to be such a pleasant, friendly girl. Now she
was nasty. And why was she displaying her burns with such
defiance? Was she ashamed of them or proud? Her
burns intrigued him. He thought that there must be great
power within the body of Larani to have allowed her spirit
to survive so much pain and wounding. Why was she so
angry with him?
"Well!" she pressed him, once again hiding herself
within the robe. "Go ahead, son of Torka! Tell
me that you would name me woman!"
Not knowing how to react, Manaravak spoke the
truth. "When I name a woman, the name I speak will
be Naya's," he told Larani simply, and
wondered why she shivered before she turned away
to disappear into the confines of her father's pit hut as
Umak called out a clear challenge from the far side
of the fire.
"You will not be the only one to speak for Naya!"
Manaravak turned and looked at his brother. Now
Umak was angry with him, too. And on the female
side of the fire, Naya clasped her hands before her
face as she failed to stifle the giggle of pure
delight that bubbled through her fingers. Hearing it,
Manaravak's bewilderment grew. Whom was the girl
laughing at? And how could she laugh at all when her
friend Larani was obviously so sad?
As he looked at Naya it struck him that although he
grew hot in his loins whenever he thought of coupling with
her, he did not like her very much. His brow settled
into a troubled
frown. Perhaps he would have done better to have given the
Helping Spirit talisman to Larani.
But even as he thought this, Naya's hands lowered, and
seeing his expression, the girl's smile vanished.
She had the oddest look on her
face-half-happy, half-sad, half-awake,
half-asleep, as though she looked at him from a
dream of complete befuddlement.
His heart went out to her across the flames. She was as
confused by the moment as he was.
The night was ruined. lana reprimanded Naya, who
began to cry. Grek shouted at lana for upsetting
Little Girl. And Simu roared at Manaravak,
accusing him of deliberately shaming his daughter.
Manaravak stared at Simu. "I only brought her
something to eat!"
"That is for her man to do!" retorted Larani's
father.
"But she has no man!" protested Manaravak.
"And you always seem to forget that she is alive!"
"Better if she were not!" Simu rose, stalked
to his pit hut, grabbed one of his spears, and
stalked off into the night.
"Aftst
ee ay!"
wailed Eneela, and begged Dak to go after his father
lest, in his state of temper, carelessness
make Simu vulnerable to predators and cost him his
life.
Dak obliged, and young Nantu scrambled for his
spear and followed his brother with no word of protest from
his mother.
"Wait!" Manaravak implored, calling Dak
and the boy back. "If offense I have caused, it is
I who should-was
"Offense!" Eneela commanded her sons to continue on
after their father, then turned on Manaravak and called
him stupid and callous. "When you bring meat to a
woman, it is a statement of your willingness to care for
her-to be her man and her mate! Surely you know
this! How can you be so cruel? How long will you live
among us before you learn our ways, or are you still an
animal at heart?"
Manaravak, stunned by the venom in Eneela's
outburst, stormed out of camp.
"You will be silent, Eneela!" commanded the headman.
"Yes, be silent, Eneela!" Lonit echoed him
with a shout of outrage. "If an act of kindness to a
member of this band is taken to be the act of a beast,
perhaps we had all best behave as beasts instead of as
people!"
"Frankly, Eneela," added Summer
Moon, "we have all seen mammoth exhibit more
concern for their injured young than our man Simu has
shown to Larani!"
was "Our" man?" Eneela was so angry that her
voice sounded as though she were strangling on it.
"Second woman! That is all you are to him!
Second woman, taken as a favor to your father! Just
because you are young-just because you carry his baby in your belly
at last after all these years-was
"Eneela." Umak was on his feet. "Beware of
words, woman. Once spoken, they cannot be
recalled."
Demmi was standing tall and rigid beside Summer
Moon as she glared at Eneela with eyes that flashed
with dangerous intent. "It is my sister who has
done a favor for your man, Eneela, and
not
the other way around. Yes-Summer Moon is young-but
then you are growing old! And my brother Manaravak
is a son of Torka. Do not ever forget that again, or
I will personally take my dagger and-was
"Stop!" Swan was on her feet, a fringed,
feathered, and beaded island of misery amid her
assembled gifts. "You have spoiled it all! Oh,
all of you, I wish that this night had never
come!"
The light of the sun glowed gold along the high,
white, serrated eastern edge of the world for the first time in
longer than anyone could remember, but no one had much
enthusiasm for the chants that were required of them when they
assembled to observe Umak make the songs and
magic smokes of greeting to the returning sun.
"My father and Dak are strong and wary hunters. They
and Nantu will soon come back to camp with
Manaravak. I am sure that he has gone after
them. They will all be back soon. The return of the
sun is a good omen," assured Larani as, covered
from head to toe in her tentlike robe, she sought a
moment alone with Swan.
"Is it?" responded the new woman with little
enthusiasm. "After last night, I hope so. Now
that the chants have been made to the sun, Torka and
Umak are also preparing to go out after those who have not
returned."
"I know. I am sorry about last night, Swan.
I am sorry for selfishly casting my own shadow
over what should have been a celebration of light for you."
"What is done cannot be undone."
"True enough. But can a friend still be a friend?"
Swan suddenly stepped forward and, being
careful not to hurt her, embraced Larani. "Always!
It seems that we are both new women in a band within
which neither of us will ever have the man of our hearts."
Larani stiffened and pulled away. "No man has
my heart."
"Friends do not lie to one another, Larani. Only
Naya will have the man of her heart."
Larani exhaled softly. "Which of your brothers will
she choose?"
Swan shook her head. "I don't know. Demmi
says that whether Naya chooses Manaravak or
Umak, she will find a way to make them both
unhappy."
An anguished cry caused both girls to jump and
turn in time to see Torka and Umak stop dead in
their tracks as Eneela cried out again. By the time they
saw what had made the woman of Simu scream,
both Torka and Umak were striding across the encampment
with their spears in hand, spear hurlers at ready.
Dak and Manaravak, returning to camp, moved
slowly and in silence in the all-encompassing snow, like
figures floating forward in
a
strange and misted dream. They walked side
by side, which was startling enough, but it was the
sight of Simu walking ahead of them that caused a
wail to rise from the throat of every woman and the gut of
every man to go hard with remorse and dread. Simu
carried the limp, bloodied, headless remains of his
son Nantu in his arms.
"Three Paws ..." The name of the great bear bled out
of Simu's mouth as he sat within the council of
elders.
"You saw it?" Torka pressed him.
"We saw nothing," said Dak. "Only . . .
what was left."
"Manaravak?" Torka looked to his son for an
answer.
"I heard the screams of the boy, the shouts of Simu
and Dak. There was fog where they were, thick fog, very
cold. I ran . . . and found what . . . was
left of the boy."
Simu wept. "When the fog closed in, I told
Nantu to stay
close. That boy has never paid attention to me. I
should have been stricter with him . . . should have-was
Dak looked across the dark interior at
Manaravak. "You risked yourself for my brother. I
thank you for what might have been."
Manaravak was staring into the dark well of his
lap; his face was set, ashen even in the darkness.
"In this band has it not been said that all are
brothers?" His voice was very low. "I ... wish
... I ..."
"We must hunt Nantu's killer." Grek
spoke quietly and with great sense of purpose. "That
animal has stolen the meat from our cache pits and
now has begun to prey upon the P. It must be
killed. Now. Yes!"
Simu seemed not to have heard the old man's words.
"I told him to stay close . . . not to stray. But
Nantu is always one to go his own way . . . everyone
knows . . . but I told him, didn't I, Dak?
"Mind your father now, Nantu. Three Paws may
be out there in the fog. Sit where you are. If you have
need to relieve yourself, stay within sight. Yes,
boy. Stay within sight," I said. "Fog is
always thick along the river country this time of year.
Hard to predict when it will form or when it will thin
away to nothing. So stay close, boy. Listen to your
father now and . .
"Yes, Father, you warned him. You did all you could."
Dak moved to sit closer to Simu.
"In which direction did the tracks lead?" Torka
asked.
"I did not see," said Dak. "Manaravak brought
Nantu through the fog. My father and I, we ... we
heard something moving off, north . . . northeast .
. . hard to say."
Torka frowned. They said they had not seen it, yet
Simu, in a state of shock, had named it, breaking
the ancient taboo. Again he remembered the fourth
caribou lying dead with his son feeding upon its blood.
But he had broken the taboo himself when he had named
the bear and boasted of killing it. The memory turned
his heart to ice. "That which Simu has put name to,
you
did
see it Manaravak? Was it the one with three paws that
has raided our cache pits?"
Manaravak looked like a cornered animal. "What
else would it have been? Yes, I saw it, but through the
fog. It was
bear]
A big bear. What else could do to a boy what you
have seen?"
Now it was Umak who was troubled. "Lion . . .
wanawut
... a good-sized leaping cat or wolf. If you
did not actually see the attack, how-was
"Wanawut do not rip the heads off boys!"
Manaravak spoke so sharply that he startled himself.
"I saw the attack! I saw the great bear! Come.
I will show you. I will lead you to its tracks if you
doubt me!"
The accusation hung in the air.
"There is too much snow now," said the headman,
breaking the tension. "We will wait. We will allow the
women to prepare the boy as best they can. We will
keep a proper death watch-five days. Then we will
go. Grek is right: That which feeds upon the People must be
killed."
Nantu's mother and sisters and Simu's second
woman cleansed his torn and broken body. When
Larani counted all the claw marks in his skin, she
left her mother and sister and Summer Moon and went
to confront Torka. He sat outside his pit hut
with Manaravak and Umak, preparing weapons for the
hunt to come.
"I would speak for Nantu," she said.
"Speak," Torka bade her.
In her heavy robes nothing of her face was visible,
but her posture was erect and rigid. "Without a
head, my brother Nantu cannot hope to live again.
Without a head, when my brother Nantu's
body is placed to look upon the sky forever, he will not
be able to see the sky. How will his spirit hope to find the
world beyond this world if he cannot see his way? Bring this
woman the head of Nantu, Torka. And for every claw
mark that has been dug into his flesh, drive a
spear deep. And as you do so, call out the name of
Nantu and of Larani so that the great three-pawed
killer will know that our spirits are with you as you claim its
life."
"If the forces of Creation grant us the luck to find
and kill our prey, this I will do," replied
Torka, taken aback by the strength that emanated from
the young woman.
"I thank you," she said and, without another word,
turned and walked away, leaving the three men to stare
after her in amazement.
Five days later, Nantu's body was carried out
from camp on a clear, cold morning that made the
senses sparkle even though the hearts of the people ached with
grief over the death of a young boy.
His mother wailed. The women of the band wailed with her,
to help her endure the impossible burden of her
grief. Hearing them, the dogs howled and strained at
their tethers within the encampment.
Custom mandated that the bereaved father sing the
life song for a lost son, but Simu was so distraught
that he could do little more than mumble. Hearing him, Dak
looked imploringly to Umak, and understanding, the shaman
began to sing in honor of Dak's brother, for young
Nantu had been as brave as he had been bold.
He deserved better at the end of his life than a
stunned father's incomprehensible mutterings.
It was a sad and lonely ceremony. When at last the
People trudged back to camp through the snow, no one
spoke as the family groups separated and went to their
own shelters.
Outside, the men were readying in earnest for the hunt.
The sun was up. Naya faced into it and smiled. Her
head spun for a moment.
Umak was at her side. "Are you all right, my
Naya?"
"Yes, all right." He steadied her with his
rock-hard right arm. She liked the feeling and leaned
closer.
"You must prepare your fleshers, awls, and
scrapers, my little Naya, for if I am the one who
is smiled upon by the forces of Creation, the skin of the
great bear shall be yours. From its teeth I will make you
a necklet that will put any talisman that
Manaravak has given you to shame!"
It was a good-natured boast, but it had not been made
in jest, and she knew it. Her hand drifted to her
throat. How did Umak know about her talisman?
It lay safely hidden within her winter tunic. But
then, Umak was a shaman; the Seeing Wind told
him its secrets.
She leaned more heavily into Umak's arm as, from where
he stood with Dak and Torka, Manaravak stared
at her. What a fine, handsome man he was! And
Umak, too! How would she ever choose between them? And
suddenly, on a wave of light-headedness that made
her giggle, she had an idea. Looking up, she
gestured for Umak to bend closer. When he did,
although it was her intention to whisper, her voice sounded very
loud.
"I think I will let the great bear decide by whose
fire this girl will reside. Yes, in death Three
Paws shall speak my heart and choose between the sons of
Torka for me."
"Naya!" Lonit, kneeling over the assembled
traveling
supplies of the hunters, was aghast. She looked up
with incredulity. "Take back your words!"
Naya had never seen Lonit so angry. And
wasn't it strange? She could not remember
exactly what she had just said. "Words?"
"Yes! You have named the prey that our hunters seek!
Would you have my sons contending against each other during the
hunt instead of standing together for the good of all?"
Naya was flustered. Why was everyone staring at her with
such fury? Surely they must know that she would never
wish harm for Umak or Manaravak or any other
man of the band. Her lips felt suddenly numb and
dry and prickly, as though stinging insects walked within
them. "I ... take back . . . whatever I
said."
Sitting cross-legged on the ground beside the
headman's woman, Honee shook her head as she
looked across the encampment and spoke directly
to Umak. "Remember, to this woman and to your little
ones, the skin of the great one who walks on three
paws is nothing. The skin of the man is everything!"
"You will not accompany us on this trip, Old
Lion. With Simu in the state he is in, I
need a man I can trust to stay behind and serve the People
as the woman watcher."
Grek's big, broad nostrils flared as though he
was scenting the air for the stink of duplicity; certain that
he had found it, he jabbed his wide chin out
defiantly.
Torka extended a conciliatory hand and laid it
upon the old man's shoulder. "Umak, Manaravak,
Dak, and Tankh and Chuk will walk at my side.
We will miss your strength, courage, and wisdom, but
a man in possession of these qualities is needed
here."
They left Grek standing at the edge of camp with his
spears in hand and his pack frame on his back. As
Torka walked on without looking back he wondered
if he had ever done anything in his life as
difficult as that.
"You had no choice." Umak came to walk beside him
with Dak and Companion at his side. Manaravak
and the two boys trotted on ahead.
Torka eyed Dak and Umak without slowing his step.
"Do you two imagine that you will never be old?"
Dak replied with his usual curtness. "When I am
old, I will have sense enough to know when it is time to step
aside and let younger men take my place on the
hunt."
"It would seem the best thing to do," Torka agreed.
"But will you
know
when you are old? Or will your years sneak up on you
like hunters tracking caribou . . . one after
the other, each looking just the same until the stalking
cloaks fall away and the spears of truth come out
to wound you . . . until one day you are a young man
trapped and rattling around in an old man's skin,
still believing that your old bones can do all the things they
once did in your youth and trying to prove it even if
it kills you?"
Dak snorted in amusement. "Are you asking me
to feel sorry for him?"
"Don't you?" asked Torka.
"No!" Dak responded without hesitation, then cast
a quick glance ahead to make certain that neither Tankh
nor Chuk was within earshot. Then: "Have you taken a
good look at him lately? The past winter has
been hard on Grek."
Umak looked at his father thoughtfully. "Grek should have
volunteered to be woman watcher. It was wrong of
him to allow you to walk from camp burdened by the weight
of regret, for the guilt is his, Father, not yours.
You did not shame Grek. He shamed himself."
There was no sign of blood or bear in the place
where Nantu had died. Snow had fallen while they
had kept deathwatch for the boy. Afterward, air
temperatures had risen drastically and then fallen
fast, causing the snow to compact and then
solidify into a thick, rock-hard veneer.
"Which way do we go now?" Dak asked, squinting
across the distances.
"Our father would say that we must think like our prey
to find our prey."
Who spoke? Tankh or Chuk? Torka did not
take the time to care. One of the sons of Grek had just
offered sound advice, but the headman expected as much
from boys raised by Old Lion.
Torka scanned the horizon as he asked, "Which
way did the killer of Nantu run when you saw it
in the fog, Manaravak?"
Manaravak was silent.
"Well?" Dak pressed him irritably.
"In so much fog and at such a moment, it was
impossible to tell!"
Dak snapped angrily, "You must be able to tell us
more than that! After all, you lived with wanawut. The
way of the beast we seek shouldn't be hard for you
to understand."
Torka felt sick. "Enough! I will have no dissension
on this hunt. There is danger enough awaiting us; we do
not need to add to it by arguing among ourselves. We will
walk to the east. If I were the prey we hunt, I
would seek safety from wind and storms in the
hills that flank the base of the mountains. There is
southern exposure there as well as spruce groves
in the canyons. It would seem good country for our
prey."
"Or for a mammoth?" Umak asked.
"If Life Giver grazes there, yes, Umak,
it will ease my heart to know it."
The hunters searched for bear sign across great distances
but to no avail. They reached the last cache pit that
Three Paws had raided and went on toward the
east, closer and closer to the distant white mountains.
Two sleeps from their encampment, a driving wind
forced them to stop and set up camp. In silence they
raised a single lean-to. Huddled around
a.
small fire made of kindling and dried bones that they
had packed along, they ate of their rations and shared them
with the dog. With the wind rising and a wet, sloppy snow
falling all around, they sought sleep.
And now, as Torka dreamed within his traveling robe
of caribou skins, the cold, savage, unforgiving
spirits of the dead rode the wind. Their forms were purely
human.
Mother! Father! Grandfather Umak! Karana . . .
Mahnie . . . Nantu . . .
Navahk!
The last form shattered his dream, made it crack like
old, thin ice as, beneath that ice, the face of the
murderous, long-dead shaman looked at him and
laughed. Other skeletal hauntings rose through the
ice of his memories. They danced and whirled upon the
shimmering blue rivers of the northern lights. They
sang the songs of the past and of the wild, mountainous,
compassionless Ice Age land that stretched wide all
around.
Come!
cried the spirits of the dead as suddenly a great spirit
animal stood upright, towering out of cloud and snow, and
high above, spears with enormous, lanceolate heads
materialized in the fleshless hands of the dead.
Torka gasped as the ghost bear raised a
mutilated forepaw to rip at the sky. A rain of
spears fell from the clouds and the hands of the dead. The
ghost bear roared, and its mutilated paw became a
hand. The hand caught the spears and hurled them at
Torka.
"No!" he cried, too late. He was struck,
deep in his chest. He grabbed at the spears and
tried to pull them out while the spirits mocked and
beckoned.
Come! Why search for your lost totem and a luck that will
never be yours again? Larani's burns have left scars
that will never heal. Nantu's spirit is doomed to walk
the wind forever without a head. The men of your band argue
among themselves and challenge your decisions. The great
bear eludes you. Because you are old. Old! It is
time for you to walk the wind with us forever!
"No!" Torka raged back in defiance. He was
not old! He was not ready to die!
"Father?"
He blinked. Umak was looking down at him.
"Are you all right? You cried out in your sleep."
He felt suddenly very tired but infinitely
relieved. "A dream . . . only a dream."
Umak nodded, then lay down and went back
to sleep.
Torka lay awake. Sleep eluded him now, as
thoroughly as the great bear. He closed his eyes,
cursing the bear and the deep, subtle aches in his
bones that had not been there before the onset of winter.
He thought of old Grek.
Will you know when you are old?
He cursed the question and willed his thoughts away.
He must have slept then. When he woke, he felt
very tired. The sound of wind and snow falling
onto the lean-to had stopped. Umak,
Manaravak, Dak, and the boys were breathing deeply
and rhythmically on either side of him. Then, somewhere
to the east, a lone mammoth trumpeted, and as
Torka smiled, his tiredness fell away, and he
knew that the ghostly apparitions of his dream had been
nothing more than figments born out of his own fears.
He was
not
old. He was
not
ready to die.
Life Giver walked the eastern ranges as he had
somehow
known that it would. With the mammoth walking ahead of the
hunters, Torka knew that they would soon find
Three Paws, for surely they were on the trail of
their luck at last!
And then Demmi walked into camp with Snow Eater
at her side.
"May the dawn bring the favor of the spirits to these
hunters!" Standing as bold as a snow-dusted lioness
in her winter hunting clothes, Demmi offered the
traditional morning greeting of her people. With
Companion up and wagging his tail at her
side, she kicked one of die stakes that held the
lean-to in place and jumped back, laughing, as the
tent collapsed and dropped its load of snow all
over the men and boys within.
"Up now, men of the band! Take up your spears! This
woman has found sign of the prey you seek to the
south-wet and sloppy and stinking fresh!"
The men came up out of the snow, shaking themselves free of
it.
"What are you doing here?" Dak demanded. "You have our
son to care for!"
"Swan is looking after Kharn. He likes her
better anyway."
"You were not asked to come on this hunt, Demmi!"
"Nor was I told to stay behind, Dak!" Her head
went high. "Besides, after Naya's challenge, I
had to make certain that my two 'baby" brothers were
out hunting the prey that they are supposed to kill . .
. and not each other!"
Torka stepped forward to put himself between Dak and
Demmi. "Did I hear you correctly,
Daughter? Did you find sign of our prey?"
"Great stinking globs of sign! And even bigger
footprints of one that uses only one forepaw when it
walks-a paw that is about this big!"
Demmi held up her hands to indicate a bear paw
that would be as broad as the head of the beast.
Tankh was looking up at the young woman with awe.
"How brave you are for a female!"
Demmi reached down and cuffed the boy fondly on the
head with a gloved hand. was "For a female," eh?
Would
you
have come out across the land alone after what happened
to Nantu?"
Dak flushed with sudden anger and gave his woman a
hard, open-handed shove, then pulled her close, and
when her hood fell back, he stared straight into her
scowling face.
"Do not smile when you speak my poor dead
brother's name! You are not so brave. Or have you
forgotten that the last time you went out alone, I'm the
one you threw your spear at and nearly brained with
stones hurled from your bola when, in a perfectly
female panic, you imagined that you saw wanawut
lurking behind every boulder and within every puff of fog!"
Demmi shook free of his hold and raised her
spears as she replied with anger that equaled his.
"Is there a man or boy here who would say that I
am not better suited to the spear than
to sewing and changing baby swaddling? I am a
woman, yes! But I am Demmi, daughter of
Torka, and the forces of Creation have made me what
I am!"
"Go back to the other women where you belong!" demanded
Dak.
She shook her head vehemently. "I am where I
belong. Simu cannot hunt with you because he is sick with
grief. Grek cannot hunt with you because he is too
old. So still will hunt with you. My spear arm is
strong. My feet are quick. My heart is bold.
And my spirit is willing to face this thieving,
boy-killing prey. I do not fear it!"
But Dak was so furious with her that he pushed her
down. "Once, just
once,
you are going to do as I say!" He stood over her,
shouting his rage. "Get up! We will go back
to camp
together]"
"No!" Manaravak intervened. He was so angry that
he was shaking as he reached out to pull Dak away from
Demmi.
Torka saw Dak's arm rise. The headman
took hold of Dak's sleeve before he
could strike out at Manaravak. "Stop this. It is
your right to discipline your woman, Dak. But you will not
strike her! Stand back, Manaravak. You have no
place in this. Get up, Demmi. Do as your man
commands."
Mutely she obeyed and stood with her head down,
staring at her boots.
The tension in the air was palpable. Torka was
surprised when Manaravak spoke out to break it with
words of conciliation. "Dak must stay. Dak has
need to hunt the killer of his brother. This man will
hunt another time." The words had not come easily
to him, nor did the ones that followed as, with a sigh and
shrug, he looked away from Dak to his brother.
"Maybe you will make the final kill. If it is
so, Umak, remember that I have walked away from this
hunt. If Naya accepts you, it will be because still have
made it possible.
You will have to share her. But that is for later talk. Now
Manaravak will take Demmi back to camp."
"Get your filthy wanawut hands off my woman!"
The low, deadly slur of command that growled out of
Dak's throat was the sound that a lion makes when
another member of its pride ventures too close
to a hard-won kill.
Torka was appalled by what he saw in Dak's
face at that moment-and in Manaravak's. Hatred,
jealousy, malice, a willingness to kill. Quickly,
he strode forward, took Demmi's hand, and jerked
his daughter away from them both.
"Enough of this," he cautioned. "This prey that we
seek will come to kill again. We must end its life,
or no man, woman, or child will be safe." He
leveled a warning look at Demmi. "You have found
the sign for which we have looked. Lead us to it now. You
may be a strong, bold woman, Demmi, but you are
also thoughtless and immature. You will walk with us. No
man will be turned from this kill for your sake."
"Mother, what is it?" Swan asked. She sat with the
other women and children in the sun, working on small
projects to distract them from worrying about the
hunters. "You look so strange."
"I don't know." Lonit's words were soft and
seeking. "Something disturbs me-a feeling that even as
we stand here something is happening, that something has gone
wrong."
"Everyone fears for the safety of the hunters," Swan
told her. "And Demmi's absence makes it
worse."
While she spoke, little Yona came
screaming from the pit hut of Crek to fall weeping
into lana's lap as a highly flustered Naya burst
from the hut.
"My doll is dead!" Yona screamed. "Look
at all the blood!"
lana stared at it in stunned silence. "Where did you
find this doll, Yona?"
"Snow Eater brought her to me. Naya wants
to take her out and bury her! Tell Naya not
to bury my doll!"
lana looked as though her skin were about to crack as she
took the doll, brought it to her nose, scented the
blood, and then rose to her feet slowly and with
obviously dangerous intent. Her eyes were skewers
of ill-contained rage as they fixed the girl.
"Bury it? Is that what you wanted to do?"
"I-was Naya had gone so pale that even her lips
were white.
"Bury it with the other missing doll? One doll for
each moon? You have hidden from the People the truth that you have
become a woman!"
"No!" Naya's denial was too adamant to be
anything but a lie.
While everyone stared at Naya, lana stepped
forward and slapped the girl so hard that
Naya spun completely around before dropping to her
knees.
Grek stalked forward in a rage. "What is this?
You will not strike Little Girl!"
"Your Little Girl is a lying, deceitful woman!
Look! She has stolen our Yona's dolls
to use to stanch her flow! Four men, a woman, and
our two sons are out on a hunt, needing all the
luck that they can hope for, and in this camp your Little
Girl has walked among her people as a woman for at
least two moons, hiding the truth, deceiving us, teasing
the sons of Torka, and making each of them believe
that he is the object of her desire while, in
truth, she obviously wants neither of them. She
has broken every taboo concerning her gender . . . and
we have wondered why the forces of Creation no longer
smile upon this band!"
Grek was so stunned that he could not speak.
Slowly, regally, Lonit walked forward until
she stood before the pit hut of Grek. Extending her
right hand, she gestured for lana to pass her the doll.
She took the dog-tattered, moisture-stained little
object, scented it, then let her arm fall to her
side.
"I see," Lonit said coolly. Then,
kneeling beside the distraught Naya, she raised the
girl's face with her free hand. "Why have you done
this, Naya?"
"I ... w-want to stay w-with G-rek ...
to b-be a girl . . . n-not a woman. I...
d-don't w-want... to child-choose. ..."
"Between my sons?"
The girl nodded pathetically.
"But you
must
choose, Naya." Lonit's voice was gentle,
full of empathy and concern. "All girls must
become women. You wall find it is not
a
thing to be feared."
Eneela had risen and come to pause beside Lonit.
She stared down at Naya as though in shock.
"My Nantu, his heart was full of you," Eneela
told the girl. "If you have bled and not gone to the hut
of blood but have eaten and slept in the same hut with
men, then you have contaminated the life spirit of every male in
this band and have brought this calamity to my Nantu. Oh,
and to think that my Dak is out there in the snow, with no
luck, no-was
"No more accusations," Lonit interrupted.
"Naya is of the P. She has healed Larani's
burns and salved Manaravak's injuries.
Nantu is dead because he disobeyed his father's command.
Your own man has said this, Eneela."
Eneela trembled as she fought back tears of
animosity toward Naya.
"I want Naya out of my pit hut." lana's
voice was unyielding as she glared at Grek with
both hands laced defiantly across her distended
belly. "For the sake of this child that I carry, for the
sake of Yona and Tankh and Chuk, I do not
want her near me or mine!"
"Grandfather!" Naya wailed.
But Grek was stricken. His face was as gray as
ashes. "Naya, tell me that you have not done this
terrible thing."
"She
has
done this thing," said Lonit. She rose, took
Naya's hand, and drew the girl to her feet. Then
the headman's woman gently tilted Naya's
face upward again and said, "From this day, will Naya
live by truth, and honor the traditions of her band?"
Naya gulped and stammered. "y-yes."
Lonit nodded. "Then heed what this woman
says to you now. When the hunters return to camp, this
woman will ask Torka to call a council and
choose a man for the new-woman Naya, who has
forfeited her right to choose. Naya will go to her
man-whoever he may be-without complaint; until then
she will live in Torka's pit hut. Naya has
forfeited her right to be honored by the feast fire that would
have celebrated her life as a new woman. No
gifts will be given to this new woman. The forces of
Creation must see that the People do not honor those who
risk ruining the luck of all in order to satisfy
their own selfish whims."
There was a way for men to hunt bear. And there was a
way for bear to hunt men. Midway across the hills,
the paw prints led them across increasingly snowy
terrain. When the trail dipped into a willow-and
drift-choked defile, Torka called a halt.
"The great three-pawed one is leading us," said
Dak.
His words were unnecessary; everyone knew the truth. But
by then it was too late; they
had
been led. Before they could position themselves
defensively, the bear charged downhill with snow
exploding on either side of her. Her snout
was up, her lips peeled back. Her teeth were
bared, and sunlight flashed through a spume of slobber.
No position could have been worse for them.
"Scatter!" Torka's command elicited an instant
response. The hunters propelled themselves in all
directions as hundreds of pounds of snarling flesh and
blood and bone and fat came hurtling toward them.
Shoved hard by both Dak and Manaravak, Demmi
lost her spears as she fell on her side, wrenching
her back. Dak threw himself on top of her and
grabbed her in his arms. The two of them rolled down
the steep decline, gathering snow as they went.
Releasing a bloodcurdling howl, Manaravak
scooped up his sister's spears and, arms up, went
wading downhill after Demmi and Dak until his
snow walkers tripped him. He fell directly
in the path of the bear.
Safely to one side of the charging animal, Torka,
Tankh, and Chuk fought to keep their footing on the
slippery slope as they steadied their spears. They
expected the bear to veer toward them, but her weight was
propelling her forward, and she could not stop. As she
went past, Torka cried: "Now!"
He and the boys loosed their spears. The bear was
struck-three spears, three strikes. Not
one was fatal. The bear kept on running downhill
toward the felled Manaravak and, well below him,
toward the stunned Dak and Demmi.
"No!"
The roar came out of Umak. He and Companion and the
sledge were well below the bear, in a position of
relative safety since the momentum of the bear's
charge would apparently take her past him-or would have
if he had not elected to move.
"Manaravak!" Umak called down frantically
to his twin. "Get up! Ready a spear if you
can."
Then he turned, picked up the sledge, and found the
strength and balance to shove it into the bear's path.
Umak jumped aside just as her bad paw came in
contact with the sledge. She roared against pain and confusion
while Companion leaped out and landed on her
hideously scarred flank. Thrown off balance, she
went heels over head as the dog fell into the snow.
Umak rammed a spear deep above the bear's
shoulder and downward with all his might into her lung.
Downslope, Manaravak stared up, saw what was
happening, and fought to right himself, rolling hard to his
left. And then, managing to loosen his snow walkers,
he forced himself onto his knees and, with a
spear braced, awaited the bear.
Torka shouted for joy. What magnificent sons
Lonit had given to him!
The bear was spitting blood as she fell. Spears
protruded from her body; they were broken by her fall
and driven deep by her weight as she had landed on
them. When she rolled to a stop before Manaravak,
Torka released the second of his spears. Tankh
and Chuk followed suit. From the bottom of the
defile, Dak hurled the one weapon that he had
left.
The bear was heaving, bleeding, and making gurgling sounds
as she sucked for air from only one good lung. The
great bear fought to rise. Now Manaravak would
strike the final blow, and Three Paws would die.
But Manaravak did not move. He stayed on his
knees and held his spear at the ready, but he did
not throw it.
A wave of horror rose within Torka, half
choking him on despair as he realized that the
burn-ravaged creature no longer looked like a
bear at all. Standing upright, waving its forelimbs,
the bear looked like neither man nor bear. It
resembled another animal-the one creature he
knew his son would never kill.
Wanawut.
Demmi saw it, too. "Manaravak!" Her
scream of terror rent the air.
Manaravak ignored her. Calmly, as though he
feared no danger or threat of death, he laid his
spear across his thighs.
Three Paws stood taller, extending
blood-soaked forelimbs and head. A rain of
blood and saliva fell upon Manaravak, and
Torka knew that a part of him was about to die with his
son.
Two spears flew from above. One went wide, the
other struck true. Umak and Torka waded
downward through the snow, brandishing their arms, yipping like
wolves as they bravely attempted to draw the beast
away.
It was too late. Manaravak's hesitation had
cost him. The bear fell upon him with terrible ferocity
as Umak leaped out and drove home the killing
thrust.
The dead bear lay in a great sprawl across
Manaravak. A frenzied Demmi sat astride
its corpse, stabbing it and sobbing in anguish. Dak
stood back, stunned by her savage display of
grief. It took the combined efforts of all
to pull the young woman away and roll the lifeless
bear off Manaravak.
"He looks dead, but I think he is still breathing!"
exclaimed Torka.
Barely daring to believe it, Torka knelt close
and, trying not to recoil at the extent of his son's
injuries, pressed his fingertips hard against
Manaravak's throat. Yes! There was a pulse.
"Manaravak lives!" he declared.
Umak was at his side, his expression grim. "Not
for long if we don't stop this bleeding. Tankh,
Chuk, bring my medicine bag. It's strapped to the
sledge. Hurry."
Demmi knelt beside Umak and her father. All
color bled from her face. "Look at him, look
at my brother, my beautiful brother!" she sobbed,
and bent to hold on to Manaravak as though she would
never let him go.
"Demmi, you cannot help him like this. Come away now,
Daughter."
Torka tried to gentle her "back, but she would not
be gentled. It took the help of Dak and Umak
to loosen her hold and force her away. Torka's
temper was riled. For Manaravak's sake he
calmed the storm of anger that he felt
rising within him toward Demmi. Manaravak's
breathing hinted at broken ribs, perhaps a pierced
lung. He had been partially scalped and seriously
raked across the back and arms and the left side of his
face by the bear's claws. His appalling wounds would
have to be stanched and packed and stitched, or he would
surely bleed to death.
Dak, standing beside Demmi, noticed that Umak's right
arm was bleeding badly. But the shaman, preoccupied
with his brother, was oblivious to his own pain and
bleeding. When Tankh and Chuk returned with the
medicine bag, Dak snatched it, opened it, and
retrieved a length of buckskin bandage. "I'll
take care of the shaman," he offered.
Umak consented to be bandaged only when Torka saw
the extent of his injury and insisted that he allow Dak
to bind it.
"In days and nights to come, the People will speak of this
hunt and of how Umak risked himself to save his
brother," Torka told his firstborn son.
Umak accepted the praise in grim silence and
endured Dak's ministrations. Then he and Torka
set to the task of helping Demmi to put
Manaravak into a condition in which he might be safely
brought back to camp. Father, daughter, and
son worked together wordlessly.
Unable to be of assistance, Dak led Tankh and
Chuk to the carcass of the bear. "We have a bear
to skin," he told them. "It must be ready
to transport as soon as Manaravak has been
prepared for traveling."
Umak was so preoccupied that later, when young Chuk
came, he took no note of him.
"Look, Umak. Dak told me to show you this.
It's one of your spearheads. Your spear made the
killing blow. You'll be the one to have Naya now,
won't you, Umak?"
Umak made no comment as he sutured his brother's
brow. Manaravak's breathing was shallow. The color
of his face indicated that he was in shock, perhaps near
death. Naya was the last thing on his mind. Even if
she had been standing beside him and asking him to take her,
he would have told her to go away.

It had taken the hunting party two days and a night
to bring Manaravak back to the encampment. Now he
lay near death in his pit hut.
With Swan, Summer Moon, and Demmi assisting,
Lonit cared for her unconscious son as she commanded
Naya to bring her own bag of healing aids
from the hut of her grandfather to ease Manaravak's
fever and to eat the pain in Demmi's back.
Outside, in the center of the camp, the skin of the great
bear was taken from the sledge and unfolded. The meat that
lay within was portioned out, but none would be eaten until
Manaravak recovered or died. The People prepared
themselves to fast and pray to the forces of Creation.
Torka called no council. After he spoke
privately with Lonit about Naya, he summoned
his people and said, "Let no more traditions and taboos be
ignored lest we all suffer for the carelessness and
thoughtlessness of a few." He turned and pointed at
Umak. "On the hunt yours was the killing thrust.
All saw your valor. Let all the People know that the
granddaughter of Grek is now the woman of Umak.
There will be no ceremony and no gifts."
Umak was too stunned to speak. The girl must have
become a woman in his absence, but how could she have
gone into the hut of blood and come out again so quickly?
What had she done to anger lana and Torka and
cause Grek to hang his head in shame? Suddenly
Umak was furious. This was no time for a man to think
of a woman-not even of Naya.
"I will take no woman until my twin's fate
has been decided by the forces of Creation!"
he proclaimed. "And this kill that I have made-I
could not have made it unless my brother had put himself in
the path of the bear. The kill belongs to us both!"
This said, he gave Torka no opportunity
to challenge him as he cast off his robe and took up
the skin of the bear. Wearing it as a cloak and blowing
through a whistle made of hollowed bear bone, he
beseeched the forces of Creation to spare his brother's
life while he danced as he had never danced before.
Naya stared at Umak and fought against the shooting
pains of a skull-squeezing headache. The shaman
whirled before her. She did not like his dance or the way
he looked in the horribly mutilated skin of the
great bear. She hated the sight of the skin. She was
sorry she had asked for it. If he tried to give
it to her, she would tell him to take it away. She
wanted no part of it or of him. He did not look
like her Umak. He looked huge, menacing,
terrifyingly male. She caught broad glimpses
of the man beneath the skin-stark-naked except for his
ceremonial paint and wristlets and anklets of
feathers and bones.
How graceful he was. How magnificent. And
how frightening! He was more powerful than she had
realized, not as tall as Manaravak but
broader of chest and back and just as lean of hip and
belly, with an organ large enough to cause her to gasp
at the sight of it. What must it be when it was distended?
Painted in the same red and black spirals that
adorned the rest of his body, Umak's penis
seemed menacing-large enough to become locked in a
woman's body, causing pain, tearing tender flesh,
unable to withdraw. Wide-eyed and terrified, she
remembered the dogs-and the wanawut of her nightmare
of death. She felt sick with dread as she stared at
this never-before-seen portion of Umak. Unless Torka
or Umak changed his mind, the shaman could take her
to his hut and . . . She stared ahead, unable to think
of it, but unable to stop.
A day and a night passed in quick succession in the
camp above the river. And during all that time, as
Manaravak lay in his hut near death, Larani
kept a silent vigil. Seated in her furs
outside her father's pit hut, she neither ate nor
slept as she beseeched the spirits to spare Manaravak.
And all the while Umak danced until at last he
was as humpbacked as old Grek and as heavy-footed
as the mammoth that trumpeted in the eastern ranges.
His chanting droned on, broken only now and then when
Honee and Jhon brought water to ease his
parched throat. He would not eat. He would not rest
until he was certain that his brother's life spirit was
safe within his body once again.
Only the presence of the mammoth kept Torka's
spirits from falling, and only a basically forgiving heart
allowed Lonit to permit Naya to enter
Manaravak's hut to administer what healing she could.
Naya's manner was one of supreme concern as she
knelt beside Manaravak and took from her own neck the
exquisitely carved little talisman of bone.
"Our helping spirit," she whispered to him. "I have
brought Scorched Ears to help you. Look, do you
see?"
Manaravak did not see. He was delirious as the
young woman gently slipped the carving around his neck.
"It is very special, but you need its magic more than
I do now. Helping Spirit will heal you and make you
strong again."
As two nights and days passed, Naya's
ministrations were ceaseless. Her tonic of ground-up
bits of red berries and pulverized flowerets of
dried thousand-leaf in a willow broth began to eat
Manaravak's fever and his pain; he began to breathe
more easily and sometimes, although still in a sweated
delirium, he would laugh out loud.
Her efforts allowed Lonit to sleep while a
hollow-eyed, resentful Demmi watched the girl
closely. "It seems that
your old grandmother Wallah taught you well,"
Demmi said reluctantly. "You are not completely
useless after all."
On the morning of the third day, Manaravak's fever
broke. He asked for water. Naya brought it to him
in an oiled bladder skin and held the smoothly
polished bone spout to his lips just as Lonit
came in through the cold flap. She scooted close
to her son, touched his brow, and then bent to kiss it as
she smiled and choked back happy tears. "Oh,
Demmi, my girl, it looks as if the worst is
over at last! And Naya, how can I thank you?"
The sound of Umak's rasping, weary chanting
permeated the silence of the little hut. As Naya
listened, she remembered the sight of the shaman dancing
in the bearskin robe, whirling in his body paint and
feathers, with his organ exposed-huge and dangerous
to her eyes. She looked up at Lonit and did not
hesitate. "Tell the headman that I am not ready
to take Umak as my man. Ask him not to make
me."
Lonit's smile faded. "Naya, you
ask too much of me. Despite all of your help
here, after what you have done, how can I ask Torka
that?"
Manaravak's hand rose and closed weakly on his
mother's wrist. He could have no idea to what Lonit
was referring. Nevertheless, he spoke one word. It was
all that he had strength for. It was a simple word-a
grain of sand that would loose the boulder of fate and
send it plummeting down upon them all. One word.
"Ask."
Torka was so tired that the request that his woman was
making seemed trivial. "Return to Naya the right
of choice. Manaravak still desires her."
"I cannot," he said. He had not forgotten the look of
longing on Umak's face when he had said: still
want her, 1 want her more than I have ever wanted
anything in my life.
"Umak has earned the girl. Although what he-or
Manaravak-sees in her is beyond me."
"Manaravak would have died had it not been for the
granddaughter of Grek. Surely she must deserve
some consideration. After all, when you gave the girl
to Umak, he was in no hurry to accept her."
"For good cause. I have already spoken on the matter,
Lonit. Before the entire band I named her
punishment."
"Is it against the traditions of our ancestors for a
headman to change his mind?"
"I will not have my sons at each other's throats
over Naya!"
"They need not be. Their love for one another is
deep and strong. Let the girl choose. Truly,
it is the only way that there will ever be true peace between
them."
He closed his eyes, held her close, felt the
warmth of her body soothe the weariness of his own. "A
moon ... I will give her that much time."
"With Manaravak as ill as he is, it is not enough.
It should not be said later that if she chooses him over
Umak, that her choice has been made out of pity
for a sick man."
Sleep was closing in on him. "Then until the time
of light returns fully to the Valley of the Great
River. If the forces of Creation are with us, the one
who lies wounded should be well and strong by then."
"Yes," she conceded, yawning now and snuggling
close. "If the forces of Creation are with us. It will
be a good thing, and I am sure that Umak will understand."
The shaman brooded. He felt betrayed by his
parents and could not understand why Naya had lied
about coming to her time of blood. Nor could he understand
why, once her lie had been discovered, she had
considered Torka's punishment to be anything but a
fulfillment of her own wishes. He cursed under his
breath. Torka had given her to him! But now the
decision had been reversed, and if this were not
humiliation enough, Naya was avoiding him.
Umak ground his teeth. Manaravak was alive
only because Umak had willingly risked his life
to save him. And while Umak had danced naked in the
cold wind and gone without food for two days and a
night appealing to the spirits to save his twin's life,
Manaravak had asked Lonit to intercede for Naya
on his behalf. . . and to give him a chance to win her
favor again.
Umak trembled against frustration and rage. How could
Lonit have agreed to speak for him? And how could
Torka have consented? He could not understand. He was not
certain that he wanted to understand.
The sun stayed longer in the sky each day. There was still
snow upon the ground, and the wind still rose to drive
storms across the land, but the storms seemed less
intense, the snow had a different texture, and between
storms the scent of spring was in the air. The People of
Torka could smell it. They could feel it.
Everyone knew that it would not be long before the Moon of
River Ice Breaking. And after that the Moon of
Green Grass Growing would rise above the Valley
of the Great River. Summer would not be far behind. With the
knowledge that their longing for endless days of light and warmth would
soon be satisfied, the People's moods lightened, and
gradually the tensions of the long winter seemed to be
falling away.
In the hut of Simu, Eneela sat up, awakened
by Summer Moon's song of welcome to the returning
sun. The younger woman was outside, sitting with Uni
in the gaunt but nourishing sunlight. The child was
clapping her hands and humming happily along, doing
her best to follow the words of the song.
"My Summer Moon sings like a bird," said
Simu appreciatively, sitting up beside Eneela
and nodding. The past days and nights had seen a
gradual change in him-the madness of inconsolable
grief had left his spirit. "The coming baby has made
her happy."
"And you," said Eneela.
His face twisted with happiness, sadness, longing,
regret. "Yes," he conceded. "It will be good
to hold a baby again and to see the sun of summer and
feel ..."
His words went on, but Eneela did not hear them.
She stared down at her hands: worn, callused,
knotted at the joints, they looked like stalks of
deadwood spread out upon the bed furs-an old
woman's hands. But how could this be? At
thirty-six, she and Lonit were close in age. And
yet she did not need the calm, reflecting waters
of a tundral pool to tell her that she looked
older. Her hands told her that, and
the weight of her breasts as they sagged against her
belly. They had been her pride once. Fine,
firm, bounteous breasts, filled with milk for her
babies and occasionally for the babies of other women who
had not enough to sustain their own sucklings. Beautiful
breasts made for the pleasure of her man.
But now Simu sat listening to his second woman,
lovely Summer Moon, whose slender body was
ripe with new life. Listening to the light, joyous
song of the much younger woman, Eneela was filled with
sadness and longing for her own lost youth and for her dead
children.
"Eneela! Why are you crying?" Simu asked with
concern.
She was startled to discover that tears were coursing downward
over her cheeks. Flustered, she wiped the
tears away, but in doing so she looked at her hands
again and began to sob. "Oh, Simu, Nantu is
dead, and Larani is burned, and I am an old,
dry woman!"
He pulled her into a rough embrace. "You? You are
my first woman, Eneela. Many years will pass before
we will grow old together. In the end, Summer Moon
and the babies that I will get on her will take care of the
two of us!" He laughed, a first since the death of
Nantu. Smiling, he eased her back onto the
furs. "But what kind of talk is this from my
Eneela, eh? Who is to say that I cannot put a
baby into your belly again?"
There was a young man's fire in his eyes. It warmed
Eneela, and she blushed. "I do not want to be
old, Simu."
"But you are not old, Eneela. And you are with me now.
Let us be young together for a while."
On a clear day bearing the promise of spring,
Umak intercepted Naya on her way to the place
where the women went to relieve themselves. He stood in
silence, deliberately blocking her way until
her chin went up and her lower lip quivered.
"How is my brother?" he asked.
She heard the unspoken censure in his
voice and stammered. "B-better. Every day he is
better."
"And how is my Naya?"
Her eyes went wide. "I ..."
"Will you ever be 'my" Naya?"
"I ..." She stared at him. The dark center of her
eyes seemed to float amid the white . . . large
black moons drifting, filling with shadows, black
on black. It was like looking
into the eyes of a blind woman. He was suddenly
worried about her.
"Are you all right, Naya?"
"Yes! Why would I not be all right!"
It occurred to Umak that in her concern for his brother,
she was not taking care of herself, not keeping her lips
moist with fat; a woman who did not lubricate
her skin soon dried up and withered like an ill-tended
hide left to cure in the sun too long. It also
occurred to him that he would love her even then.
"Let me pass, Umak," she demanded.
He did not want to yield but knew that he must.
He stepped aside. As she hurried by him he
asked once more; "Naya, why have you refused me?"
Without slowing her pace, she looked back over her
shoulder and, with a sudden giggle, smiled at
him and spoke the words that brought the sun back into his
heart. "I have not refused you at all!"
Now, when the weather allowed, the children played outside,
the women brought their sewing out of their pit huts, and the
men of the band began to make new spears in the light of
day.
Still weak, in pain, and beset by a lingering low-grade
fever, Manaravak, longing for the warmth of the sun,
forced himself outside to sit out of the wind before his pit
hut. Naya and Demmi hovered near, making
certain that he had bed furs around his shoulders and over
his limbs. Now that Manaravak was out of danger, he
returned the Scorched Ears talisman to Naya with
his thanks. Lonit smiled as she brought him a new
backrest, and Sayanah led the other boys close
to admire his brother's wounds.
"Look! He will have many scars!" Sayanah
proclaimed with awe and envy, for among the hunting people,
a man without scars was a coward who had never risked
himself.
Larani happened by at that moment. She stopped and
looked closer, then smiled a little. "Scars, eh?
So you like scars do you, Sayanah?"
Larani had long since stopped hiding under her
new-woman sleeping skins, but she still
kept a drape of hide over her head, wearing it like
a hood. Sayanah looked up at her as though
afraid that she was about to take it off.
She made an exhalation of indifference, then
appraised
Manaravak coolly.
"Hmm,
yes, Sayanah is right. You will have many scars, but
perhaps you will not be "too bad ugly" when you are
finally healed!"
Manaravak glared up at Larani. He could see
all but the burned side of her face smiling at him
from within her hood. Merriment sparkled in her eyes.
Memories suddenly flared within him, and he realized
that she had deliberately taunted him with his own
words. Was it possible that he had been so callous
toward her? He had not intended to be.
Now, despite the bravado of her posture and
tone, compassion settled on her face, and she
laughed-not
at
him but somehow
with
him and at herself, as though the two of them had been the
butt of some terrible joke. "Don't be so
glum! You're alive and all in one piece, aren't
you?"
Suddenly, the wind turned without warning, baring
Larani's head before she could grasp at her hood and
pull it up again.
In the clear light of day her scars had been terrible
to behold. Most of the great, dark, clotted scabs
had fallen away; her new skin had an opaque
pinkish-purplish sheen to it. It looked rather like the tiny
petals of rhododendrons that grew high in the
mountain valleys. Her hair, once singed to near
baldness, was growing back on the unburned side of
her head; it was a thick, black stubble that shone with
bluish tints in the light of day. As he looked at
it, it made him think of the mane of a young horse, for
where length allowed, she had combed it sideways,
encouraging it to fall over the curve of her damaged
scalp where hair would never grow again. In time the
length would hide her disfigurement.
"At what do you stare? Did you see enough? Am I
not beautiful?" The young woman's head went high.
Her eyes flashed, and her nostrils flared
defensively, daring Manaravak to voice his thoughts
of revulsion.
He had none. He was thinking that in a
strange way she
was
beautiful-reshaped and redefined by fire-and he was also
thinking how much she reminded him of a horse-yes, of
that wondrous, burning horse that had come leaping over
the abyss, raining flesh and fire upon him as it died.
Had its spirit sought a new life within the daughter of
Simu and Eneela? The thought amazed and entranced him
as much as the sight of the strong, defiant young woman
inspired him. What were his pain and scarring when compared
to Larani's courageous heart?
"Well?" she pressed haughtily. "Did the
sight of me make you so sick that you can't even
speak?"
He shook his head. It hurt. He did not care.
He kept on staring unflinchingly up at Larani.
"You are beautiful."
She stiffened. Searching his eyes for mockery and finding
none, she could not believe it. Her mouth set itself
into a straight, hard line. "You are a liar ... or
a blind man!" she said, and without another word, she
turned on her heels and walked away.
Clouds moved in from the northwest to cover the sun.
By dusk it began to rain, a thin, cold rain that
smelled vaguely of salt and of strange,
unrecognizable essences.
Umak stood in the rain, allowing it to fall upon his
face and into his mouth. Ever since Naya had
spoken up to encourage his continued affection, he had
been in a fine mood. He was even speaking
to Manaravak again. After all, he could afford to be
forgiving. With his own eyes he had seen that Naya had
returned Manaravak's talisman. The
granddaughter of Grek
was
going to be his woman, after all. He was certain of
it!
Night was coming down. Now, as he called upon the
Seeing Wind to help him understand the meaning of this rain
that smelled like watered blood, the wind turned and the
scent disappeared. Umak could find no threat in it.
The rain fell off and on for most of the night. Sometime
before dawn it turned to sleet. And then, just when they were
all certain that winter was over, the cold returned
with a vengeance. The pit huts were glazed, and
icicles glinted in the light of a sun that shone
brightly but withheld its warmth.
Then at last, under intermittent clouds, caribou were
sighted coming out of the distant mountains and into the far side
of the Valley of the Great River. The men
readied themselves for the hunt, and the women prepared
to butcher the kills of their men. The headman said that the
cold was a gift from the spirits, enabling the hunters
to cross the still-frozen river to the caribou on the other
side.
Torka led the men of the band toward the distant herd.
Umak was glad that Manaravak was not well enough
to accompany them. With the big dog Companion loping
easily at his side, he was confident that this time he
would
bring gifts to Naya. Manaravak could do nothing that
would stop him.
In stalking cloaks and with spears launched out of spear
hurlers, they killed caribou. This was the first hunt
of the year. There was no limit on the number of
animals that were to be killed. No one knew when
wolves and dogs emerged from the snow-covered hills,
but soon man and beast were hunting together, killing together,
and feasting together. A thread of oneness connected them,
predator and prey, land and sky, and all the unseen
but strongly perceived elements of mystic savagery that
united man and animal with their environment.
When at last the kill was done, the exhausted men
drew lots. Simu was selected to go back to bring
the women across the river. As was customary,
when a kill was as large as this, the women joined the
hunters at the killing site to make a temporary
butchering camp. Here they would cursorily dress the
hides and prepare the meat before transporting their
treasure home on sledges. Given the extent of
this kill, many trips would be required before the People were
settled back into the camp above the river and the last
of the bones and unwanted portions of meat and hides were
left behind for carrion.
As the hunters watched Simu go they rejoiced in their
extraordinary success and praised the forces of
Creation. A hard wind was blowing out of the west,
driving forward what promised to be a nasty storm,
but they were not concerned. Simu would be back with the women
before it struck. Soon there would be warm fires and
fresh meat as the band celebrated under capacious
lean-tos that the hunters set themselves to erecting.
With Umak working beside him, Torka felt better
than he had in many moons. He had performed well
on the hunt. All had seen his strength and daring.
Umak had also done himself proud, bringing down a
particularly fine bull. The pelt was unusually
pale; even along the back and sides it was almost as
white as die belly and underlegs.
"For Naya?" Torka asked.
"For
my
Naya!" Umak affirmed.
"She will smile upon such a fine skin."
"And upon the man who brings it to her!"
They worked ceaselessly until night settled over the
Valley of the Great River. The hunters were too
tired to raise a fire. Within the protection of their
lean-tos, they slept with bellies full of meat and
dreams aflame with memories of the hunt.
The women reached the killing site toward dusk of the
next day. Dragging sledges loaded with all of the
necessary supplies to assist them in the work to come, they
happily sang the appropriate songs as they
followed Simu into what was to be the butchering camp.
The hunters greeted them enthusiastically: Lonit
and Swan and Summer Moon, Eneela and Larani,
lana and Honee. The older children followed.
"Where is Demmi?" Dak asked his father.
Simu measured his son with pity. "You want
Demmi? You go get her."
"But all of the women have come out to assist their men. The
only female who has cause to stay behind is
Naya. She watches over Manaravak and his
fever."
Simu looked impatient. "Why do you waste yourself
worrying over a woman like that, eh, Dak? Look
over there to her sister Swan. Now there's a fine young
woman for you. Make her an offering of a few of these
fine hides, a bit of fat and feathers, and she'd be
happy to say yes to you. Torka and Lonit would be
pleased."
"Enough, Father! Demmi is my woman. I will not be
shamed!" He eyed the lowering sky. "When the weather
breaks, I will go back to camp and bring her here, if
I have to blacken her eyes and drag her, kicking and
screaming, all the way!"
"Dak?"
The shaman came to stand beside Simu and was dressed for
traveling. Companion sat at his side, harnessed
to a well-loaded sledge.
"Come on, old friend. Between the two of us we ought to be
able to talk some sense into Demmi. A butchering
camp is supposed to be a camp of celebration!
If we hurry, we can be back in the camp above the
river before the storm breaks. And I don't want
to wait to show my kill to Naya. Have you ever seen a
more beautiful caribou skin in your life? Since she
couldn't come out with the others, I want to give it to her
as a surprise!"
In the camp above the river, the storm swept across the
land like a great white tide, wailing and whispering.
Within Manaravak's pit hut, the fire guttered and
went out. Demmi fell asleep beside her brother after
drinking Naya's brew to ease the pain in her
back. He lay awake, however, listening
to the wind and the snow and to the howling of wolves. At
last, Naya came to him. He watched her through the
darkness-so small, so light on her feet, so
lovely.
She stood above him, bending low, allowing her
braids to fall forward over her snow-dusted,
fur-clad shoulders. "I have brought you more of my
healing drink to ease you through the night." She knelt.
Her palm was cold against his brow. She smelled of the
snow and the storm and of all good things. "Let me check
your brow for fever."
He smiled at her. "It is not so bad to be a
man with fever when the granddaughter of Grek comes
to tend me with her healing ways."
She knelt back from him and looked at the sleeping
Demmi. Surprise registered in her posture;
Demmi was always awake for the final check each day.
"I am glad you have come," he said to Naya,
accepting the new supply of brew from her,
and as she held the bladder skin to his mouth he
sucked greedily at the bone spout and gradually
relaxed as he felt the heat of the liquid expand within
his belly and veins until he was helpless to do
anything but relax.
The girl bid him good night, but he held her hand.
"Stay with me while I sleep, Naya. The storm
grows wild outside. There is no need for you to go out
into the cold."
Naya could not sleep. The storm raged outside the
hut, and now and again she thought she heard something howling.
She shivered, pulled her coat up around her
shoulders, and sat still, determining to wait until the
wind dropped before she went back to Grek's hut.
Naya looked closer at Demmi, and then pulled
back in amazement. The woman was smiling in her
sleep and actually looked happy.
Manaravak, on the other hand, was tossing and moaning
against troubling dreams. Concerned, Naya soothed him
with soft words and offered occasional sips of her
tonic. After each swallow he slept more easily.
With a sigh, Naya took a draw on the bladder
skin herself.
She sat very still, thinking about her medicine. She could not
sleep without it, and often in the middle of the
day, she would find herself thinking about it so intensely that
if she did not take a drink, her head would ache and
her hands tremble.
She sighed, took another pull on the bladder skin
and then another and another until, remembering that her
berries could sometimes bring bad dreams, she stopped.
But her thirst was so deep, she could not refrain from
drinking again. She doubted if she had ever drunk so
much of her medicine before. How good it was! How
warming. All at once she was maddeningly warm and
irresistibly sleepy. She pulled off her coat
and tunic. The fireless hut was cold. The air
caused her to shiver violently. Her breath formed a
mist before her face. Suddenly cold and needing warmth
in the same driving, mindless way that she had needed
her medicine a few moments before, she pulled back
the bed furs that covered Manaravak, crawled onto
his mattress, and cuddled close.
Manaravak turned slightly. As she drew the bed
furs over them, Naya suppressed a giggle,
wondering what Demmi would say if she awoke
to find her brother and Naya naked beneath his bed furs.
Manaravak awoke with a start as cool, questing
fingertips tentatively traced his mouth. He stared
into the face of Naya and realized that he was
not alone. She lay naked beside him, propped on an
elbow, one slender limb casually thrown across his
thigh as she looked at him in the most curious way,
almost as though she were weighing the merits of a stranger and
finding them to her complete satisfaction.
"Man . . . ara . . . vak ..."
He stared, entranced. She seemed to be speaking out
of a dream. Her eyes were open, and yet he was not
certain if she was awake. His fingertips touched her
lips even as hers lingered upon his. When the tip of
her tongue touched the backs of his fingers, the contact
was so purely, provocatively sensual that he
gasped.
She smiled and continued to move her tongue and slowly
slid her bare limb up and down over his.
Perhaps if she had not sighed so dreamily and moved
closer to him in that moment . . . perhaps if she had not
allowed him to inhale the sweet scent of her breath and
to feel the hot, peaking tips of her nipples against
his chest . . . perhaps if she had not whispered low that
she was glad that the spirit of life had decided to remain
within him . . . perhaps he would not have kissed her.
Soon she might be his brother's woman, but now she
was here. Although she had made no formal statement of
choice, she was accepting his kiss,
encouraging the slow trespass of his tongue, arching her
tiny body forward to ease the exploration of his hands,
allowing him to feel her eagerness and readiness as she
began to work her round, soft hips and press herself
against his thigh.
As in the willow grove so long ago, she allowed
him to position her with ease . . . only this time when
she straddled him, she observed his distended organ, and
giggling like a child, she fondled it. When she felt it
move and swell, she looked at him guilelessly and
asked him if it had a life of its own.
The question made him laugh. "Yes," he affirmed.
"Oh, yes, Naya. Here, let me show you. Let
me share that life with you."
Naya had no fear of him-only fascination. Her
body felt light and heavy all at once. There was
no thought; there was only sensation. Manaravak was
browsing, licking, encouraging her to do the same. His
body was warm. He tasted of salt. She wondered
dreamily how she could ever refuse him anything. Her
loins were throbbing, moist, empty, as though in need of
filling. But with
what?
Somehow she knew that Manaravak was about to give her
the answer.
Her skin was afire with his fondling, his stroking, his
wondrous invasions. She yielded, opened herself
wide, and offered no resistance when at last his
powerful hands slowly lifted her. He brought her
down slowly, so slowly, upon that part of him that roused
surprise and ecstasy. It seemed to Naya that
Manaravak caused the sun to explode within her
body. Its heat, its radiance-
this
was the need she had sought! And now, as he held her
hips and rammed deep, where once she might have
screamed in terror of her memory of the savage
mating of the dogs, now she screamed with rapture.
Only reciprocal movement could satisfy her
need for more of him as ever-expanding waves of pleasure
shook her to her very soul.
She screamed again. There was no pain in the sound,
only pleasure as Manaravak released into her. But
still she moved on him until a cold and terrible gust
of wind and a wave of snow entered the hut along with
Dak and Umak. Manaravak withdrew and, with a moan
and an exhalation of shock, set her roughly away from
him.
"No!" cried Naya, staring at the intruders and
seeing
them as nothing more than faceless, unwelcome
figures taking shape within a dream. Her loins were
throbbing, not yet fulfilled. She did not like the way
the intruders were ruining her dream. "Go away!" she
demanded, and got to her knees and moved
to Manaravak, whimpering softly. "Fill me . .
. again. ..."
And suddenly a man who looked very much like Umak was
glaring at her and Manaravak with unspeakable
disappointment and bitterness.
"She is yours, then. Behind my back and without
honor, she has chosen. Here. Take these skins.
A gift from Umak to the new woman and her new
man!"

Leaving Naya in a befuddled heap, Manaravak
stumbled to his feet and followed Umak out of the hut.
"Brother! Wait!" Manaravak called, his heart
chilled by his twin's anguish.
Umak kept walking into the wind and snow.
Naked, barefoot, and still dizzy from his fever and
Naya's medicine, Manaravak took off after him.
His mind was in panic. He could not free himself of the
image of his brother's tormented face. He had not
realized the depth of Umak's love for
Naya until now-indeed, he could not understand that kind
of love. If only Umak would face him, perhaps
he could explain that what had transpired between Naya
and him had not been intended. A lustful mating on a
snow-filled night . . . was it so important?
Why was Umak so upset? If Naya meant so much
to Umak, they could share her.
The snowfall was intensifying. A deep, thick
layer of white was beginning to drift high around the pit
huts. At the edge of the encampment, Manaravak
tripped. He lay sprawled on his belly, staring
ahead into the wind and snow and darkness.
"Wait! Umak, I ... she ..."
Umak stopped, turned, and waited.
Distressed and in pain, Manaravak was still not thinking
clearly. Meeting his brother's glance, he found that
he did not know what to say to make things right, so he
said nothing.
Umak turned in disgust and walked away more
rapidly, angrier than before.
Confusion struck at Manaravak's mind. He
rose. "Umak!"
Only the wind answered him. He knew that his
brother would seek solitude at the edge of the camp
to the lee of his pit hut; there would be no
talking to him now, no reasoning, no hope of understanding
or forgiveness. The feelings of desolation that
assaulted him were absolute. Among those of his own
kind he was a stranger-an alien. Someone in the band
was always angry with him. Everything he said or did
seemed to rain havoc upon others. He did what he
had always done when feelings of confusion and loneliness
overwhelmed him: He threw back his head and howled.
And from somewhere across the river to the southeast, from within the
stormy vastness of the tumultuous, mountainous land that
lay beyond the Valley of the Great River, a voice
answered his cry.
He stifiFened. He fell to silence and listened to the
voice of his own kind.
"Wanawut!" Demmi cried in dismay.
Dak did not listen. He yanked her to her feet
by her hair, then grabbed her shoulders and shook her
until her teeth rattled.
"How could you have slept through that!" he raged at her.
Then he turned to Naya. "And you . . . put your
clothes on. Maybe Manaravak and Umak cannot have
enough of the sight of you, but if it were up to me, I'd have you
skinned!"
Suddenly the entire pit hut shook as Grek
threw aside the cold flap and demanded
to know what all the yelling was about. Dak recounted every
detail.
"No, no!" Naya was crying from beneath the bed furs
now. "I ... don't remember. I feel so ...
sick!"
"Impossible!" The old man's face expanded into a
mask of horror.
"Umak sits alone outside camp, not far from his
own hut. Manaravak is no longer in camp at
all. He ran toward the southeast, toward the howling
of the wanawut. From the way he was running, I do not
think he will come back!"
Dak, Umak, and Demmi went out in search of
Manaravak. They walked and called as the storm
enclosed the world in howling white.
Umak was silent and somber. Regardless of
Manaravak's actions, a brother was a brother-and a
twin was more than that. "We must go on," he said.
"In his weakened state he cannot long survive."
"Perhaps, for all concerned, that would be best," said
Dak.
Umak wheeled and struck him down.
No one spoke. Then Umak extended his hand to the
son of Simu.
For a long while Dak stared at it. Then,
without apology or thanks, he took it, got
to his feet, and started off again, leading the search with
Demmi at his side. But even the most resolute
hunters could not conduct a search in a whiteout.
Dak turned back to stand with Umak. He shouted
to be heard above the storm, his face invisible within his
icicle-and snow-encrusted ruff. "Do we tie
ourselves together and go on?"
Umak's head swung from side to side. "We'll
have to take shelter here. Even roped together, we would
probably walk in circles. The snow fills our
tracks practically before we lift a boot to make
others." He turned, seeking to offer words of comfort
to Demmi. "Do not worry. We will find him when the
weather-was
His words stopped in midflow. Demmi was gone.
Across the river in the temporary butchering camp, the
People had waited out the storm, feasting on caribou and
listening to stories. No one noticed the sudden
change in the wind's direction. Now, a fierce
gust struck the communal lean-to in which Torka and
Lonit were sleeping. Much of the night had passed
since she had drifted into sleep within his arms. He
had fallen into deep, untroubled dreams beside her, but
now he lay awake, listening to the wind,
dozing intermittently, until suddenly he rose
and, pulling on his winter parka, stood into the storm.
The wind was no longer from the north, and it was no longer
freezing. It was driving sleet and rain before it, and from
all around the butchering site came the sound of water
running off melting snow.
How long had the temperature been rising? Long enough
to melt the newest snowfall, but surely not long enough
to loose the fury of the spring thaw! No. There was
nothing sure about it.
"Up! Everyone! Awake now! We must take
whatever caribou meat we can pack onto the sledges
and hurry back to our camp above the river!"
Faces peered out of the lean-tos. Everyone was staring
at the rain. No one had to tell them that if die
snow in their encampment was melting, the ice on the great
river would be melting, too. If it began to break
up, they would be caught on the far side, and there would
be no way for them to cross the river again until
summer had come and gone and the time of the long dark had
returned to freeze the water solid once again.
Lonit was on her feet. "Have you not heard your
headman? We have work to do, and quickly! If the river
ice breaks before we are across, only the forces of
Creation will know how long it will be before we are
reunited with those whom we have left behind!"
PART VI
THE GREAT MAD RIVER
Demmi tracked Manaravak toward the river. She
did not look back or concern herself with the others.
Let them worry!
She would not walk with them if all they talked about was
turning back and abandoning the search for Manaravak.
Her steps were aided by the force of the gale that pounded at
her back. On and on she went, ignoring Dak's
imperative calls. The wind carried his voice
to her across the considerable distance that now lay between them.
He sounded distraught, and it briefly occurred
to Demmi that she had been wrong to leave his side
without a word. But if he caught up with her now, he
would probably show his relief by striking her.
Instinct guided her. She stood in a world where land and
sky were one. There was no horizon; the world disappeared
into wind-driven white. She turned and became
disoriented.
Tired and frustrated, Demmi called out,
"Manaravak! For once in your life, behave as a
man, not as a wanawut-raised fool who runs
away every time he makes a mistake! Come back,
and we will work it out! Umak has forgiven
you!"
Alone and afraid, Demmi visualized bestial
forms moving through the whiteness that surrounded her. She
gripped her spears tightly. Whatever she had seen
was gone. There was nothing there-not wanawut and not
Manaravak. Demmi fought against tears and, winning,
settled down to spend the worst of the storm curled up
in her traveling clothes within a hollow that she hacked
out of the snowpack with her spear and dagger. She could not
sleep as she thought of her wound-weakened brother
walking the world alone, barefoot and weaponless.
Well before dawn, a shift in the wind alerted her
to a change in the storm. She crawled from her burrow
and hurried on in a snow that was turning to sleet.
Even as she jogged on, sleet was becoming rain, and the
rain was turning into a downpour. With her heart in her
throat, Demmi lengthened her stride. If the
previous days of warmth had
loosened winter's last hold on the river, then the
ice could crack wide at any moment, catching
Manaravak if he was not safely across or marooning
him on the other side if he was!
Fear for her brother's life kept her going. The
river lay ahead. Desperate, Demmi forced herself
on until, at last, she dropped to her
knees in the water-soaked, icy slush of a broad,
sloping embankment. She saw his tracks and knew
that she was too late. Manaravak had crossed the
river.
She could see him on the other side, heading
southeast, into unknown country out of which the wanawut had
called to him.
"Wait!"
she screamed at the top of her lungs.
He paused, turned, and stared across the river.
She was on her feet, waving, beckoning, her heart
pounding with relief and joy to see him. She had found
him. She had found him alive at last. "Come
back!"
For a long moment he stared at her.
She knew that he was not going to come back. And she
knew that she could not let him go.
"Wait!" she cried again, and this time she was running
forward, stumbling toward the river, and then moving across
it, slipping, falling, rising again, running on and on
until a horrendous cracking roar seemed to split
the very sky. But it was not the sky that had been rent
asunder; it was the river. A vast, black gash of
open water appeared in the ice ahead of Demmi.
On the far side of the river, Manaravak
turned and without a moment's hesitation raced for the
river's edge.
"No!" Demmi warned him back.
But Manaravak had committed himself to the river. It was
a mistake. The ice was already breaking up beneath his
feet.
Torka led his people in a desperate race across the
river. Convinced that panic was a greater threat than the
river, he kept them moving, straining against the weight
of their hastily loaded sledges, certain that if they
could keep up a steady pace, they would soon stand
triumphant on the far shore.
His will to survive gave him strength. He leaned more
resolutely into his load and moved doggedly
westward. Suddenly the air was split by a terrible,
explosive crack, and the ice beneath him rose,
shifted hard to the right, and then fell.
He fell to his knees with it but not through it. It was still
solid, capable of supporting his weight. Beside him,
Lonit and Swan and Sayanah were down. His
sledge had yawed sideways, its leeward runners
lodging into a narrow channel of water that had suddenly
appeared in the ice ahead . . . and all around him.
A thin, bitter drizzle was driven at a slant
by the wind. The headman cursed himself for
wasting precious time in trying to save the meat. The
time that they had spent loading the sledges would have seen
them safely across the river by now. On his feet again,
he scanned the river's surface, which had broken
into vast white wedges, each bobbing on the water.
"Abandon the sledges! Boys, help your mothers and
sisters! Now!"
"But there is so much meat!" Simu protested.
"Stop arguing and do as I say, Simu! The meat
of the caribou will feed this river. The flesh of the people of
Torka will not!"
The Seeing Wind came to Umak in a vision of death
. . . of warm, pale flesh going down into roaring
water. He stopped in his tracks. "We must go
back!"
"Not until we find Demmi," Dak said.
Umak was adamant. "If Demmi crossed the
river before the wind turned, then she is safely on
the far shore by now. If not ..." He did not wish
to complete the thought. "Either way, there is nothing that we
can do for her now. But if we hurry, we may be able
to help the others before it is too late."
"Move!"
Torka roared at his people. All of them except
Eneela leaped to obey. Paralyzed with
fear, she was unable to call for help when Simu
moved ahead to lift a heavy-footed, fear-benumbed
Summer Moon to her feet.
"Come on, Eneela!" Simu's command hung in the
air before the rain pummeled it into the ice. He kept
walking, holding up Summer Moon.
"Stay close to me, woman of Simu! I will
protect you!" Tankh moved past her with Larani
at his side.
"Hurry, Mother! We're over halfway there!"
Larani urged, moving on. Balancing herself and
helping to steady Tankh, she and Grek's son
leaped from one bobbing wedge of ice to another across
ever-widening narrow openings of dark water.
Blinking rain out of her eyes, Eneela stared across the
distance to the faraway shore, then looked down. The
ice
beneath her feet was moving up and down, up and down. The
force of the river caused the frozen surface to heave
and swell as though some great, gasping beast were moving
beneath it.
Try as she might, Eneela could not force herself
to move, even though the rest of the band was nearly across
now. Voices were calling her name through the rain and the
sounds of the river. She heard Torka,
Lonit, Summer Moon, and Simu.
"Eneela! Where are you, my woman?"
"Come to us, quickly!"
"No, stay where you are! I will come for you!"
As the wind thinned the clouds Eneela saw the others
gathered on the far shore. Simu was coming toward her,
striding out across the ice, leaping from one floe
to another, with Torka in pursuit.
Eneela's eyes went wide; they were putting their
lives in jeopardy for her sake.
"Stop, Simu! Wait, Torka! I am coming!"
she cried just as the ice broke wide beneath her feet.
"Eneela!" Simu cried.
The ice shifted, surged, and dropped the men to their
knees as Eneela staggered and fought valiantly for
balance. The river was changing so fast, adjustment to it
was impossible.
On shore, Summer Moon wept, and Lonit
needed the help of lana, Honee, Swan, and the
boys to keep Larani from hurling herself into the river-and
it was a river now, no longer a frozen pathway.
The broad, flat plates of ice that only moments
before had allowed the people to pass over them were now beginning
to override one another, to twist, to eddy, to roll in
response to the river, which was flowing fast and
free.
Torka and Simu fought from being swept off the ice as
the current began to carry them downstream. Open
water lay between them and Eneela, who was trapped in the
middle of the river on a flat island of ice that was
disintegrating even as they watched.
With a choking sob of despair, Simu reached out for
her, forced himself to one foot and then to another only
to lose his balance and sprawl forward. Torka, now
prone upon the single slab of ice that supported them
both, dug the toe edges of his ice walkers into the
ice and grabbed Simu by the
fringes of his boots just in time to keep him from going
headfirst into the ice-choked waters.
In a moment they lay side by side, breathless,
sickened by the ever-increasing circular motion of the slab
of ice that was spinning them farther and farther downriver and
by the horror of their impotence to save Eneela.
"Father Above!" Torka cursed all the malevolent
spirits of this world and the next as he watched Simu's
woman growing smaller and smaller, trapped on her
island of ice. Then, without warning, the surface beneath
her feet was lifted straight into the air as a
mountainous iceberg exploded upward into the light of
day from the fast-flowing deeps, shattering the
surface ice into fragments and hurling Eneela high
into the rain clouds.
Torka and Simu saw her fall . . . and fall
. . . turning in the air until she hit solid
ice and lay as limp and motionless as a sodden
buckskin doll.
Torka heard a low moan go out of Simu-and out of
himself-and then, as Simu spoke his woman's name again
and again, suddenly the ice beneath them hit something. The
impact caused Torka to roll sideways toward
the water. This time it was Simu who saved him. But for
what? The slab of ice was listing hard to the right,
sinking at one end and rising at the other until it
stood poised straight up in the air with the two
hunters clinging frantically to the upper edge.
When it fell, it plunged so rapidly that Torka
and Simu had no time to release their grip. With the
river roaring all around them, they were thrown into the
water. Stunned, with the air knocked from their lungs,
they found themselves on their backs in the river with the full
weight of the ice on top of them, pressing them down
. . . down . . . deeper into freezing depths that
allowed them no escape.
Umak, followed by Dak, charged into the water to drag
Torka and Simu from the ice-choked
shallows where the raging river had left them to die.
Half-drowned and stiff with cold, the shaman sat
shivering on the embankment, rubbing the warmth of life
back into his father while Dak did the same for
Simu as he sobbed out the details of the death of
Eneela.
Grief struck Umak.
Eneela, friend, it was your death 1 saw, your death that
I could not prevent.
The Seeing Wind was a low, poisonous whisper at
the back of his mind. Eneela was gone. They would never
find
her lifeless form except in their memories. Could
he tell his father that Demmi and Manaravak were also
missing?
Later.
He would tell Torka later. Now the Seeing
Wind was a tide that rent his soul with vision, and he
knew that he must advise his father of another
devastating truth. "The flood that will soon be upon us
shall be like none we have ever seen. We must get back
to the winter camp to move it to higher ground!"
"And Demmi and Manaravak? Are we to turn our
backs upon them, too?" Dak's question was acidic with
rebuke.
Dumbstruck, Torka stared at Umak, waiting for
an answer.
Umak spoke with the voice of reason. "Father, what
has been done cannot be undone. The river will rise
to fill the lowlands and sweep us all away if you do
not heed me. Those that are lost-may the forces of
Creation be with them. But if you are to save the band, you
must walk with me now and not look back."
"I will not leave my woman!" Dak was emphatic.
Torka was more so. "Demmi is my daughter, and
Manaravak is my son. But Umak speaks the
truth. The future of the People lies with the band. The
lives of the women and children depend upon us. We cannot
risk them-not even for those we love."
Clinging to one another, Demmi and Manaravak were
swept downstream, and only their combined strength and will
to live allowed them to keep their heads above water
until a turn in the river cast them hard upon a
spit of icy gravel that extended far out from the
shore. Stunned and shaking violently against the cold,
they sat numbly together in the rain.
"Tired ..." Manaravak exhaled. "So
c-cold ..." His eyes rolled back in his head.
Demmi was certain that he was dead. Terrified, she
knelt close. Manaravak was naked in the
cold rain, yet his skin was hot. His effort to save
her life had cost him dearly. His fever was back,
and his breathing was erratic. Kneeling close, she
pulled him up against her and held him in her arms and
rocked him as though he were a child again.
Manaravak's head fell onto her shoulder. He
slept in her embrace. In the rain and wind, he
slept like a mindless, exhausted animal beside the
raging river.
Something flowed by the gravel spit: a furry mound
upon a whirling floe of ice. Demmi began
to tremble with dread. The river was running so fast and
wild that the form on the ice was almost lost to view before
she could fully focus upon it. Almost.
It was enough to allow her to glimpse a human hand lying
motionless upon the ice, a fall of hair, and a face
staring open-eyed in death as blood darkened the ice beneath
the gaping mouth.
"Eneela?"
The floe was gone. Stunned, Demmi waited in
horror for other familiar corpses to float by her
on the ice. When none did, she tried to convince
herself that she had imagined the first one.
Now, as she focused upon the ice-thick waves, she
realized the water level had gone up
substantially since she and Manaravak had crawled
onto the gravel bar only moments before. The river
was rising! And the thaw had only just begun.
"We cannot stay here!" She tried in vain to rouse her
delirious brother and pull him to his feet. The
effort exhausted her. She dropped to her knees
again. Manaravak's strength had been destroyed
by weakness and fever. He could not get up. His life
was in her hands. And although she was alone with him at
last, she could not rejoice, for they were isolated from their people
on the wrong side of the river, on a spit of land that
was even now disappearing underwater.

As Umak had predicted, the river overflowed its
banks with a vengeance, drowning or driving all living
things before it. There was no time to mourn for Eneela nor
to wonder what may have happened to Manaravak and
Demmi.
It was a silent, desolate band of travelers that
walked away from the raging river toward the high
hills that flanked the eastern ranges. They carried
only bare essentials and dragged no sledges at
all. When a family of hares bounded
ahead of them, Naya assured everyone that the
animals would lead them to Manaravak. Her
reward for speaking out was a sharp clout to the side of the
head from lana. Grek ignored her protest. And
when Naya sought to walk with Umak, he sent her
shrinking back with a warning to stay out of his way.
Lonit found no reason to pity the girl. Although
Naya swore that she had no idea why Umak was
angry with her or why Manaravak had run off into the
storm with Demmi in pursuit, Grek had
shamefacedly revealed enough of his granddaughter's
inexcusable behavior to cause Lonit great
distress. She had trusted the girl, and Naya had
brought trouble down onto her own head again-a trouble that
would be dealt with later in an official council ...
if the river allowed a later to any of them.
On and on they walked, with the river at their backs.
When the little ones began to lag behind, Torka commanded
their elders to carry them; when the footsteps of their
elders faltered, Lonit commanded them to focus their
hopes upon Torka-he would not fail to lead them all
safely to high ground. And yet, for the first time in her
life, doubt lay beneath her words.
Two of her children were missing. Nantu was dead.
Larani was scarred for life. There was little hope of
Eneela's being found alive. The Valley of the
Great River was driving the People away as
viciously as Daughter of the Sky had done. If the
great mammoth totem, Life Giver, still walked
ahead of them, there was no sign of it. Perhaps Torka
had lost his luck after all.
Demmi would never be certain how she was able to find the
strength to bring Manaravak out of the river. It was already
pouring across the gravel spit when she got him up and
dragged him onto solid ground.
"Leave me," Manaravak whispered. "Save
yourself."
"You
are
myself! Get up. Help me. I cannot do this alone!"
"You will have to."
"Never! Since we were children, have I not always cared for
you? Since we were children, it was always Demmi and
Manaravak together."
They clung to each other as they sloshed forward, always
moving away from the river and toward the hills. But the
river was following them, spreading across the land like a
vast
and terrible roaring shadow. Chunks of ice slammed
up against their legs, knocked them off balance, and
sent them sprawling into cold, turbulent currents
that were increasingly difficult to overcome.
From the sky and from the hills, water was running
madly, racing through old, familiar stream
channels, cutting new courses onto the outwash
plains and across the vast alluvial fans that girded
the loins of the great mountains. Out of every canyon and
glacier and snowfield that stood at the perimeters
of the great valley-as well as from every drop of water that
fell from the sky and from the substance of every piece of
ice, large and small, that was breaking apart upon its
surface-the river was calling upon its kindred spirits
cloud, rain, ice, and water to join it in its mad
run across the drowning land.
Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the catastrophe that was
engulfing her, Demmi tightened her grip on
Manaravak. When he fell, she fell with him and
felt his weakness as he sagged against her with a moan of
surrender.
"Don't give up on me now!" she screamed at
him. She slapped his shoulder and pulled him up,
nearly expending the last of her strength in the effort.
"We're almost to high ground," she lied. "Come on.
I need you as much as you need me!"
He looked at her sideways, nodded, and for her
sake, he fought his way to his feet.
Together they stumbled on. The water was up
to their knees and rising fast. Terrified, Demmi
locked her arms ferociously around her brother. A
block of ice struck her hard from behind. The land beneath
her feet disappeared. There was no bottom now.
Demmi and Manaravak were being swept away.
"Hold on to me!" she implored, and then cried out
in anguish because before she could stop him, Manaravak
deliberately twisted sharply in her grasp and
shoved her away.
"Swim, Demmi!
Live!
For Dak and Kham, you
must
live! Without me to hold you back, you have a chance!"
"No!" she screamed as she saw him go under. The
water closed over him and refused to yield him up
again even though she reached for him and dove under the
black, raging surface. She could not see him; she
could not see anything.
Her senses were battered by the force of the current, the
bruising, buffeting, mind-stunning contact with floating
ice, and the horrendous roaring of the river itself.
Underwater the sound was alive, invasive. It entered
her body to beat and to hammer within her eyes and ears and
chest until she felt certain that it was going
to explode outward through her skull and skin and tear
her to shreds. She felt herself succumbing, yielding,
relaxing in the current as it carried her away and
away to ... to ...
Suddenly her forward motion was sharply arrested by something
massive and solid and immovable. The force of the
river began to pull Demmi past it. With all that was
left of her strength, she grabbed for it and found her
fingers clinging to some grassy shrubbery that held her
fast against the icy torrent. She closed her eyes
and longed for her lost brother.
May he be alive, swept onto dry land!
She was too weak to give voice to her hope. It was
all she could do to keep herself from being carried off by the
river. With half her body awash in the
floodwaters and weakness overcoming her, she climbed
higher, entwining her fingers more tightly into the long,
hairlike strands of shrubbery, twisting it around her
arms so that if she should drift into unconsciousness, the
river would not be able to pull her away to certain death.
Moments passed. Incredibly, she slept. . . .
She awoke with a start. She was moving again, being
carried off by the river . . . his No. The river was
flowing around her, past her. And yet she was moving
forward, at a slower, heavier pace. Her
body was lifted up, out, and down, up, out, and down,
again and again until slowly it dawned on her that the
object to which she clung was carrying her.
In the rain and darkness it took her a moment
to realize that the object to which she clung was the
massive, towering forelimb of a living beast. And when
she looked to the side as she was lifted forward, she
could see others of its kind plodding steadfastly through the
rising waters.
"Mammoth!"
The river had sent her colliding into the leg of a
mammoth! Startled and suddenly too numb to hold
on, she fell. When she hit the water, she was on
her back, staring up at the greatest tusker of them
all-Life Giver.
Totem.
With what seemed a huff of annoyance, the mammoth
extended its trunk, and as Demmi screamed in
horror it hefted her from the river, lifted her high
above its massive tusks and the twin domes of a head
that towered twenty-two feet above the river bottom,
and swung her back to deposit
her with an unceremonious, sodden plop upon its
sloping shoulders.
7
am dead and in the spirit world, for only there can such things
happen!
she thought. Demmi grabbed handfuls of the mammoth's
hair for leverage as she clambered high upon the back
of the beast. Slumping into a seated position at the
base of its neck, she wrapped its hair around her
thighs lest she slip again or be knocked into the river
by the mammoth's jolting, swaying gait.
Exhaustion struck at her. Again she told herself that
this could not be happening, for she saw Life Giver's
trunk reach out and pluck a limp figure from the
water.
"Manaravak?" She was weeping when the mammoth
placed her brother's naked, semiconscious body
across its neck in front of her.
"Demmi . . dis8he whispered her name. "Am I
dreaming, Demmi?"
"You are dead," she told him. "We are both
dead. For not even in dreams can such things happen!"
When the flood abated, Torka and his fellow
hunters searched a devasted land for signs of
Demmi and Manaravak and for Eneela's body. Their
efforts were in vain.
Although they found the corpses of many an animal,
bloating and beginning to rot in the sun, they
found no sign of the ones who were lost.
"They say it is your fault."
Bereft and red-eyed from hours of crying, Naya
looked up as Yona came toward her. She sat
alone at the edge of a desolate temporary camp.
Beyond the miserable lean-tos, the men were gathered within a
sagging tent, where they had been talking since dusk.
"The men and older boys are angry at you, Naya!
Even Grek. Simu says that the forces of Creation
have turned against the People because of all the bad things you have
done!"
Naya held her aching head. They were right, of
course. It was all her fault. They said that she had
lain with Manaravak. They said that she had shamed
Umak. How could she have behaved as they said and not
remember it?
"Are you listening to me, Naya?"
"I do not want to listen." She felt sick with
remorse as she drew a berry from the few that
remained within her pouch and, not caring whether Yona
observed her or not, stuck it into her mouth.
"lana will be angry if she knows that you are eating those
berries," said Yona.
"She is already angry," reminded Naya. "No
one but you will speak with me."
"You are in big trouble, Naya." Yona's
expression of smug vindictiveness was puzzling and
hurtful.
"You are not being very nice, Yona. Why are you so
pleased by our people's anger toward me?"
"You killed my dolls!"
Naya sighed. "No one can kill a doll. Besides,
I made you another and-was
"You killed my dolls! I saw the blood! I
hope they listen to Simu and put you out of the band."
Naya suddenly felt cold with dread. To be put
out of the band was a certain sentence of death. "They would not
do that. It is a punishment of the old ways, of the
ancients. Torka would never-was
"Torka is very sad and is listening more than talking.
Simu says that the time has come to remember the old
ways." The little girl's face was radiant. "When
they send you away to walk the wind forever, Grek will
love me best! When they send you away, I will not have
to watch over my dolls, because nobody in this band
wants to kill them but you."
"I will hear no more of death."
The grim finality in Torka's voice told all
who heard it that no challenge would be welcome ...
or wise.
Only Simu dared to look at the headman eye
to eye. "I do not accept your decision! The girl
has brought these calamities upon us. My son
Nantu is dead! My daughter Larani is
scarred for life! My Eneela has been lost to the
river. The dog pack has been reduced to two
animals and a litter of pups. We have been driven
from one hunting camp to another by fire and rain and
river and ice!"
Grek's eyes blazed. "Daughter of the Sky is
no stranger to the People under the Moon When the Grass
Goes Yellow! You cannot blame my Naya for that!
And your Nantu, he disobeyed you and walked off
alone to feed himself to Three Paws. You cannot blame
Little Girl for that! And when we crossed the ice, if
Eneela had kept up, she would still be with us! My
Naya did not force her to fall behind. And Demmi,
woman of your son Dak, she has been as much
trouble to this people as my Naya! Why not blame her for the
burning of Larani and the death of Nantu and-was
"Demmi may well have already answered to the spirits for
her ways," Umak said. His voice held an
odd, twisted edge.
Simu met the shaman's gaze. "Well, our
shaman speaks at last!" he snapped.
"Are you forgetting the shame that Naya has heaped on
you-with your own brother? Are you overlooking the fact that
her actions drove Manaravak and Demmi out of
camp and into the storm? If anyone has a right
to speak against Naya, it is you!"
"Yes. All that you have just said is true, Simu.
But emotion is the enemy of wisdom. That is a
truth that would serve you well if you would take the time
to learn it."
The shaman's reference to Simu's behavior
embarrassed the hunter. "Bah! A man without
feelings is no man at all. Are you going to sit
here and allow this issue to remain unresolved?"
"It
has
been resolved," Umak replied coolly. "The
headman has resolved it. Only you have contested his
decision."
"But there has been no punishment!" Simu shouted in
frustration.
"Enough!" Torka's open palms came down hard
onto his thighs. "I have said that there has been enough
talk of death. I have
not
failed to come to a decision."
All eyes were upon the headman.
"The granddaughter of Grek has been trouble to us
all," he conceded. "Nevertheless she is young and may
yet learn new and better ways. She was given
to Umak once. Now she
will
go to his fire circle. He is Shaman. He will
deal with her as he will. This is his right."
Umak's face went blank with shock. "I ... do
not . . . want her anymore."
Torka shook his head. "Then would you have her abide
by Simu's will and walk the wind forever?"
"I ..." Umak looked as if he was going to be
sick.
"She cannot go back to the fire circle of Grek,"
Torka told him. "Old Lion has shown that he
cannot control her."
Crek hung his head.
"That leaves only Dak," Torka continued. "Would
you take Naya to your fire?"
Dak winced. "I have a woman!"
"Too much talk leads nowhere and accomplishes
nothing. I am headman. The talk must end with me.
I say that Umak, as Shaman, is the best man for
Naya. Umak, you
will
take the granddaughter of Grek to your fire
circle-if not for your own pleasure, then to ease the
burden of Honee."
"And if Manaravak returns?" Simu's voice
was congested with anger.
"She will be Umak's woman," Torka repeated.
"There will be no contention."
"Where Naya walks, contention follows like a
shadow!" Simu was livid. "What if she
flaunts the ways of our ancestors again and causes
the luck of the band to turn bad again?"
The question hung black and foul in the air like the smoke
of a burning brand that has been dipped in rancid
fat. Torka drew it in and then solemnly
exhaled his reply: "Then, for the good of the band, I will
be forced to command her death. Does that satisfy you,
Simu? Does that'satisfy
all
of you?"
"No." The shaman's eyes were black and
desolate with terrible resolve as he spoke to his
father and fellow hunters in a low, weary tone. "If
I must be Naya's man, then I will claim my
rights and my responsibilities as her
man. If she offends the forces of Creation and puts
the band at risk again, it will be my obligation to kill
her."
Demmi awoke and looked toward the sun. Life
Giver had plucked Manaravak and her from its back
with its trunk and deposited them on the lip of a
wide, deep, sun-warmed cave as though they were no
larger or heavier than the tiny, sparrowlike
longspur that sought shelter upon Demmi's shoulder.
It all seemed like a dream to her: Manaravak at
her side . . . the sun on her face . . . the
deep, shadowed interior of the cave at her back .
. . the mammoth moving slowly away below, and the little
bird nesting at the base of her neck . . . all
were strange, mystical elements in a wondrous
tale. Her body was bruised, and her feet were
battered; nevertheless, she felt so good, so full of
life. When the longspur opened its wings and flew
off toward the northeast, she smiled and knew that it
would be seeking its own kind.
Standing with his weight on one leg, Manaravak was
stoop shouldered and drooping with fatigue beside her as
he looked out of the cave. "They will all be dead on
the other side of the river. We will never see the People
again. I can smell their death. Yes, I can
smell their decay."
He slumped onto the stony floor of the cave and,
moaning softly, shook his head as though to clear it.
Concerned, she knelt beside him. For the first time since
awakening, Demmi looked closely at her
brother. The mammoth had saved him from the river, but
he was still terribly ill. She touched his shoulder. His
skin was afire with fever.
"Stay here and rest," she commanded. "I will bring you
water and try to find something to keep you warm."
"Do not worry about me."
Shaking her head with loving admonition, she slipped
her hunting tunic over her head and placed it
firmly around his shoulders. "How could I not worry
about you, Manaravak, when I have always done so?"
"You should not have followed me."
"You should not have run off into the storm!"
"Dak should have beaten you more!"
Dak!
What did she care about Dak now? Demmi was
glad to be free of the unwanted
responsibilities he represented. She was
glad to be alone with Manaravak. But now she must
make him well! She rose. Naked to the waist,
she shivered in a draft from the depths of the
cave. It was cold, turgid, moist. For the first
time, she heard the sound of water dripping and pooling
within the cave. Since there was water inside, she need
not trouble herself with how she was going to transport it to the
cave for her brother to drink. Catching the stench of
rotting meat, she wrinkled her nose. Was it a
creature that had denned within the cliff and died there,
or was it meat dragged into the cave by a living animal
that was feeding off it even now or likely to return
to feed upon it soon? Lions did this, and so did
bears.
Demmi swallowed hard. In the state that she and
Manaravak were in, they would not have a chance against a
predator's attack.
"We cannot stay here!" she said to him.
But even as she spoke she realized that he could not
hear her. He had slumped to the cave's floor and
was delirious. She actually hefted him and made a
few faltering, back-wrenching steps until she
realized the futility of her effort-the mammoth had
lifted them high into the cliff face, and in order
to descend, she would have to climb down a hefty
portion of mountain wall. With Manaravak, it would be
impossible. She lowered him onto his back, then
knelt beside him, touched his face, kissed his
brow and mouth, and touched the scars with which the great bear
Three Paws had marked him. Then she kissed him
on the mouth again, a woman's kiss. Dak would not have
approved. But Dak was not here to see her as she
drew back from her brother and wished him strength and
life if she failed in what she was about to do.
Slowly, with her heart pounding and her mouth dry,
Demmi rose and walked into the interior of the cave with
her skinning dagger in her hand.
Still seated at the edge of camp where she had been
dozing alone, Naya stared up at Umak as he
came toward her with his back to the morning light. His
face was set. His eyes troubled Naya as he
stopped in front of her. They were dark
and fixed and hostile. They were not the warm brown eyes
that she knew so well.
"Get your things and come with me."
"No!" Naya shouted in dismay and disbelief.
"Umak, tell me that you're not going to send me
away!"
"Collect your things and come with me, Naya. Do not
make me say it again."
Naya was too frightened to move. From where she sat,
she could see faces peering toward her from the various
family lean-tos. The hunters had
emerged from the council tent at last. They were standing
still, all staring toward her. Grek turned his eyes
away when hers made contact with his.
"Come, I say!"
She winced. Umak's command had been as sharply
placed as an angrily hurled spear. She grew
cold with fear. The man who stood before her was not her
Umak. He was Shaman. He was aloof and openly
threatening.
Naya's heart froze as she remembered the way
he had danced before the forces of Creation on behalf of
his wounded brother-painted, feathered, his powerful naked
body displayed for all to see, his male part as big
and bold and potentially dangerous as the rest of him.
"No!" she cried, cowering. "I will not go anywhere with
you!" Tears burned and welled within her eyes. She
gritted her teeth to keep from screaming.
He reached down, grabbed her by her hair, and jerked
her to her feet with such force that she nearly dropped
her sewing bag.
"Do not say no to me again," he warned as, without
another word, he began to drag her across camp toward
his lean-to.
Umak was all at once ferociously angry and
sad and ecstatically happy. Naya was his
and would do as he said or die. His power over her
pleased him as much as it aroused him. He had never
wanted her more-and yet, perversely, he did not
want her at all.
He dragged her across the encampment toward his
lean-to. He felt no pity. When she tripped,
he kept on dragging her until she managed to get
to her feet. He shoved her into his lean-to, past
a gaping Honee. Li and young Jhon jumped
aside as she went stumbling forward onto his neatly
piled bed furs.
Stunned, she scrambled into a seated position,
clutched her sewing bag, pulled her knees up
to her chin, and wrapped her arms around her lower legs,
shivering.
Umak stood glaring at her. Anger could make a
man hard with need. He was both.
Honee ordered the children outside. "Your father will be
alone with his new woman for a while."
The woman's words fell upon Naya like an
avalanche. She burst into tears. She sobbed for her
grandfather and made to rise, but Umak pushed her down.
"Grek will not come," he told her coldly. "This
is your fire circle from now on. The council has
commanded it. The sooner you get used to the
idea, the better off we will all be. You have shamed
me, Naya. You have shamed yourself and your people. The least
you can do now is accept the will of the headman and of the forces
of Creation. You are my woman. If you value your
life, you will remember that and be obedient to everything that
I say."
Naya's head dropped onto her knees. Her
entire body convulsed with sobs.
Honee swept Jhon and Li from the lean-to, then
paused a moment and looked at her man out of a face
that was contorted by concern. "She is just a girl,
Umak. Be kind to her."
The softly spoken plea roused irritation instead of
compassion. "If I were not kind, Simu would have had his
way in the council. He was right about her: She is
trouble."
Honee stood very still. Her face was grave as, without
another word, she took up her warm robe and said that
she would return when he called for her.
"You need not leave."
She appraised him and the sobbing girl with knowing eyes.
"I would rather not stay."
He watched her go. He knew Honee well enough
to be certain that she would take the children to the lean-to of
Grek and offer comfort and assurance of
Naya's welfare to the old man.
Naya's sobbing drew his attention back to the
small, vulnerable young woman. He did not understand
her fear of him; he would not tolerate it.
"You did not weep when you spread yourself for
Manaravak. You did not sob when you worked yourself for
him and begged him to fill you . . . again."
She looked up. Her face was colorless, haggard.
"I don't remember."
"No?" Umak was untouched by her piteous tone.
Her guileless expression enraged him. A woman
could not behave as she had behaved with Manaravak and not
remember. "Well," he said, and reached down
to pull her to her feet. "You will remember this!"
Even as he reached to kiss her she cried out that she was
going to be ill. She was violently sick. After
sobbing and vomiting, she then collapsed into a pathetic
heap at his feet and wept and said that she was sorry.
He did not know when the anger bled out of him. He
only knew that he was on his knees, holding her,
rocking her in his arms as though she were a small child.
"Don't, Naya. I did not mean to make you
cry."
She sobbed until exhaustion took her, and she
sagged against him. He rose, brought moist
skins to wipe her face, then picked her up and
carried her to a clean pile of bed furs. He
felt her watching him as he returned to gather up
her mess, and after wrapping up his ruined sleeping
skins, he tossed it all out of the lean-to. When he
returned to her, she was sitting slumped and weary,
red-eyed and shamefaced. He knelt before her and
asked her if she still felt sick.
"My berries ..." she whispered. "In my sewing
bag over there. They will make me better."
He brought the bag to her and saw her frown with great
concern as, with shaking, eager hands, she brought out
several wrinkled orbs the color of dried blood.
"They are almost gone," she told him, sighing
regretfully, allowing all but one of the berries
to slide back into her pouch. "I must not waste them.
I must make them last." She ate the dehydrated
fruit.
He watched as her face relaxed. Color
returned to her lips and cheeks. All of his old
feelings for her were back as she smiled wanly at
him.
"Good medicine," she said, closing her eyes. And
then suddenly she flung her arms around his neck and
clung to him. "Oh, Umak, why is
everyone so angry with me?"
He was devastated by the depths of his love. He
stroked her arms and her back, found his fingers straying
absently along a single length of thong that lay about
her neck. "You
must learn to think before you act, lest others continue
to carry the weight of your mistakes and thoughtlessness."
She trembled a little as she buried her face more
deeply into his shoulder. "Sometimes I do things but do
not know why or remember afterward what I have done. This
is not a good thing."
"No. It is not a good thing." He held her,
kissed the top of her head, and continued to stroke her
neck, absently slipping her thong necklet between his
thumb and index finger. "You must remember that you are a
woman now. I will help you to be more careful. You will
not regret that you have become my woman."
"I do not want to spread myself for your man bone. It
is very big." There was no mistaking the repugnance and
trepidation in her voice.
"You spread yourself for Manaravak."
She drew in a troubled breath, then: "I do not
remember. He must have
made
me! And afterward I hurt inside and bled.
His man bone was very big, too! It was not a good thing
for me." She stiffened in his arms a little, then
deliberately changed the subject. "When the time of
endless light comes, will my Umak help me to find more
of my good medicine berries?"
"If this will please you."
"It will please me very much. But we must not tell
lana."
"You are my woman now. You need not worry about
lana."
Again she sighed, happily, sleepily. "Good."
She yawned. "I do not like lana."
The warmth of her breath against his throat was as sweet
and welcome as a summer wind. He closed his
eyes and held her close. She made no
attempt to move away. She was his now, safe and
content in his arms. Whatever would be between them as man and
woman would come as it would, when it would. He would not
force it as Manaravak had done. He would lead her
gently, guide her tenderly, open her to his need
so gradually that her body would soon fit his like a
fine and yielding glove.
His brow came down. So Manaravak had taken her
against her will! When he had burst in upon them out of the
storm, jealousy must have caused him
to imagine the worst, and so that was what he had seen and
heard. Naya had not been a
willing mate to his brother. She had no wish
to lie with him ever again. Manaravak had forced her,
hurt her. No wonder he had run away!
Umak smiled a sad and bitter smile. Poor
Manaravak. Always the wanawut howled at the back
of his spirit, loosing an animal nature that was never quite
able to conform to the ways and restrictions of his fellowmen.
Perhaps if the forces of Creation would bring him safely
home again, he might yet learn; in any event,
Umak would forgive him. After all, they were brothers,
twins, and Naya was his now. Nothing that Manaravak
could do-in this world or the next-could ever change that.
Demmi did not look back. She walked steadily
on into ever-diminishing light toward the appalling stench
of putrifying meat. The cave was deep and wide and
filled with cold drafts that gusted like errant ghosts
through unseen breaks in the mountain wall. Demmi
shivered, not liking the cave-she thought, to calm herself,
that bears preferred a tighter den, and lions sought
drier, sunnier aeries in which to shelter.
She paused, in deep shadow now. She drew in a
breath, and a few more steps brought her through the thickening
dark to find what she was looking for. The dead
animal that lay at the back of this cave had not
normally denned within it; there was no evidence of meat
being dragged in, no fecal matter, and only a
few stones were disturbed here and there as the great bear had
found its way into the cave to die.
Demmi laid her hand across her mouth and nose
to filter the stink of rotting flesh. The carcass was
big and female. Its hide was bison brown. Its
claws were the size of small horns, and the paws from
which they had grown were as wide as the heads of two men
standing close together. She knelt and wondered what had
caused its death until she saw the terrible gaping
gashes that slit its belly. What could have made
them? Lions? A pack of wolves? A giant
sloth? Or wanawut? She shook the thought away.
It did not matter what had killed the bear and the
half-formed cubs that now lay shriveled in its
exposed womb.
Demmi's gorge rose. She downed it, but
barely. She hung her head and fought off a wave of
lightheadedness. Clenching her teeth, Demmi
wondered if she was pregnant. She had missed her
last time of blood, and the two previous
times had been scant and spotty; but in stressful and
hungry times, it was not unusual for women
not to bleed at all.
She had hated being pregnant. She had hated being
sick and slow moving and unable to hunt with the men. But
there was no time to worry about this now. Manaravak
needed her. And there was much work to do if the hide and
flesh and marrow of the dead bear were to provide warmth and
food for her brother and her.
It was said by the ancients that time heals all wounds.
Even wounds that proved fatal brought a respite from
pain through death. Yet as Torka led his people out of the
devastated Valley of the Great Mad River in
search of better hunting grounds, he knew that the
ancients were wrong. There were wounds that would not heal,
wounds that kept on hurting, that killed the spirit yet
left the flesh alive to ache and bleed for want of
precious things that were lost and could never be found again.
The entire band seemed to feel the weight of sorrow.
Even the children and dogs were subdued.
The need to find fresh meat beyond the flood-ravaged
valley pushed the band on. The hunters had searched
for Demmi and Manaravak, but aside from
Companion's discovery of Demmi's moccasin, which
convinced everyone that the woman was dead, no sign was
found of the siblings. Nor had they found Eneela's
body.
Dak, having lost his woman, his mother, and his younger
brother, could not eat and was in deep despair. "The
river has taken Demmi and Manaravak," he had
told Umak. "My woman has won her way at
last. She will be with her brother forever. We will never
see them again ... in this world or in the world beyond."
When the People reached the wide, rolling hill country
at the northern edge of the valley, they paused to put
the Great Mad River behind them. But first they enacted
a solemn ritual of farewell to those who could not
follow them.
It was late in the day. The sun was low. The wind was
sweet from the west as they walked somberly to the
river's edge and consigned Demmi's moccasin and
Manaravak's bearskin of Three Paws to the river
in which their life spirits would now dwell forever. As the
skin and the moccasin washed away on the current, the
band released all hope that those who were lost would ever be
found alive.
At that moment Dak's broken cries of anguish
rent the assembly, and Umak, Torka, Simu,
and Grek ran forward to prevent him from plunging a
dagger into his own breast.
"No!" Larani screamed as she raced to her
brother's side.
But to everyone's amazement, Swan was swiftest of
all. Leaving Kharn behind, she was at Dak's side
in an instant, gripping his arm. She hung on,
pulling his hand down as hard as she could, grimacing with
her effort as she raged at him through gritted teeth.
"Selfish! Thoughtless! What a terrible man you are!
Let go of that knife! Can't you see that Kharn is
watching? He has lost his mother and grandmother! Must he
lose his father, too?"
Her words cut as sharply as any blade, but it was the
violent kick that she managed to bring against his shin that
caused him to lower his arm and stare down at her in a
daze. When she slapped him so hard that his head
snapped to one side, the sound of her blow stung the very
air.
No one moved. Larani saw Torka's eyes
narrow and heard Honee gasp in amazement just as her
own mouth fell open. Never had she imagined that
gentle, mild-tempered Swan could display such
fury.
"You ungrateful, miserable excuse for a man!"
Swan's eyes flashed as she shouted at Dak.
Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she made no
attempt to wipe them away. "Coward! Weakling!
How unworthy of Demmi, for whom you say
you mourn! Her spirit must be withering with shame to see you like
this ... as does mine!"
Dak blinked, incredulous.
"Look at me!" she demanded. "I weep like the
woman I am, for my lost sister, for my brother,
and for your mother, too. But most of all I weep for you,
for the shame that you would bring upon us all!"
Dak stared down at Swan as though at a stranger.
She glared up at him, fiery eyed, tear streaked,
red cheeked, and sneering with contempt. "Why do I
waste my
words on you? Go ahead! End your life if you cannot
find the courage to face your loss and your grief like
a man!"
She turned on her heels and stalked off to seat
herself on her traveling pack, staring off across the
river until Kharn came walking up to pull at
her sleeve. Without hesitation, Swan pulled him
onto her lap and cuddled him as she said loudly,
"What a big, brave boy you are, Kharn-as
brave as your
motherl"
Dak's head went high, and his jaw clenched. His
knife arm rose slowly, and when Larani,
Torka, and Umak moved to stop him, he
warned them back with a growl.
"What I do now I do for Demmi, so that from this day
forth all may see the mark that she has made upon my
life . . . and so that never again will anyone-especially
a woman- have cause to name me Coward!"
Larani saw Swan stare at him out of widening
eyes, then quickly turned Kharn's face away as
Larani cried out in dismay. "Don't, Brother!
Please!"
With infinite slowness and without a sound, Dak stoically
drew his dagger across each temple, downward over
each arm, and then across his chest. The leather of his
sleeves and shirt opened, and blood welled to stain
his garments.
In silence the people of the band watched as Dak raised the
bloodied knife and hurled it into the river.
In silence they passed the night, and in silence they
awoke at dawn, took up their packs, and walked
on without looking back.
Late in the day the People rested. Teratorns were seen
circling once again to the south. Lonit stared wanly
off and urged Torka to lead the band in that direction in
the hope of discovering the final resting place of the
bones of their loved ones.
"If they lie dead under the shadows of the great
carrion-eating birds, at least we may set their
bones to look upon the sky forever."
Torka's brow came down. "We have consigned their
spirits to the river. Your hope must lie in the future
now. You must look ahead, not back. Our luck
has always lain to the east. If we are to find it again,
it will lie in the track of the great mammoth, Life
Giver."
Disconsolate, Lonit sighed, but she gave no
argument.
Faraway across the river, Manaravak dreamed of a
galloping horse racing across the face of the sun with
Daughter
of the Sky, crying out his name as she rode burning upon
its back.
"Manaravak!" Demmi pushed his shoulder to rouse
him from his dreams. He came up out of them blinking,
half expecting to see Larani, who reminded him
of the blazing horse and of fire.
"Listen!" Demmi's voice was imperative.
He propped himself onto an elbow, disappointed
to see that it was only his sister hunkering beside him on the
lip of the cave. How long had she been there, holding
the two crudely made staves that she had fashioned
of bear bone, watching, waiting, ready
to protect him with her life? Days. Nights. He
had lost track of time, but he felt stronger now
than he had in days and was hungry for the first time.
"Do you hear them?" she asked.
He heard. "Wanawut!" he said, smiling.
"Don't look so happy!" She looked at
Manaravak's face. The wounds there and on his arms
were festering despite her best efforts to keep them
clean and slathered with healing fat taken from the body
of the bear. Her hand strayed across his face, his
throat, his shoulders and chest. "Even though you will be
scarred, you are still the best of all men for me to be withand
to look upon."
"Let me rest, Demmi."
"Are you still sorry that we are together?"
"Yes ..." He was drifting back into his
dreams. "Better if you had not followed."
Demmi set aside her spears and crawled beneath the
sheltering warmth of the bearskin to cuddle beside
Manaravak.
Her hand moved across his belly, and then downward
until, after only a moment's hesitation, at last
she did what she had longed to do for all too many
moons. She touched his loins, stroked and fingered
until his penis stirred and swelled beneath the
gentle pressure of her palm and the slow,
purposeful curling of her fingers. "Your body
does not echo the words of your mouth, Manaravak."
Not without effort, he turned away from her. "Let
me sleep, Sister!" he growled, his voice full
of pain and irritation. "It is forbidden between us!"
Her hands were moving along his back. "Only because we
are of Torka's band. In the far land of our
ancestors, among Simu's people, it would not have been
forbidden."
"Leave this man alone! I do not want you!"
She lay still for a long while, trembling with her
desire as he relaxed into sleep beside her. She
did not move, allowing him his dreams, until, at
dawn, she heard the sound of rain. She stayed beside
him-warm and full of a woman's need for a man.
He was on his back now. His skin was hot and dry with
fever. From the occasional low exhalations that escaped
his lips, she knew that he was in pain. Once again
she sought to ease him with gentle strokings and whisperings
of affection. Her hands strayed to his loins. He was
asleep, but he was not dead-he was as hard as she was
moist and ready for him.
Slowly, with her heart pounding, she moved to kneel
over him, to handle him until he was erect
and throbbing. Only then did she position him and
gasp with rapture even before she lowered herself. How
big he was! How perfectly he fit her as she
moved to take him deep. Her body was aflame.
Had it ever been like this with Dak?
No!
She had never yearned for the son of Simu as she
yearned for Manaravak . . . never lusted for him .
. . never burned for him as she was burning now.
Breathless, she leaned down, balancing above him upon
splayed hands, and worked herself to completion as she sobbed
his name.
Eyes closed, he reached for her hips, arched up,
andwitha low, husky exhalation of release, came
into her and held her fast as he shivered with pleasure
and probed upward with his organ for more.
"Manaravak!" she cried. "At last! I knew
it would be like this for us!"
With a growl, he opened his eyes, stared up at her
resentfully, and then pulled out of her to cast her
roughly aside. "Between us this is forbidden!" He
shouted at her, with revulsion burning in his eyes.
"Never again, Demmi. Go away. You shame us
both!"
She did not go away. She knelt beside
him. She told him that she loved him and that their people were
far away and need never know what transpired between
them.
He pulled the bearskin over his head and refused
to speak to her for the rest of the day. When night came
down, he made her sleep alone.
And so another night passed for them, and then another
day. The wounds on his face and arms festered.
"The spirits are angry that a brother and sister have been
man and woman together," he said.
"Then let them take out their anger upon
me,
for you were not a willing party to our mating."
One black brow arched. "I do not sleep as
deeply as all that, Demmi."
Their eyes met and held.
"It is growing dark again," he said. "Can the spirits
see into caves to know what this man and his sister have done
together?"
"I cannot speak for the spirits, Manaravak, but I do not
fear them when I am with you. Here, let me soothe your
wounds again with fat from the bear."
But it was not the fat of the bear that soothed him; it was the
touch of his sister as he lay back and allowed her
to love him as she had loved him before. Weak
and hurting as he was, Manaravak saw no reason
to resist. They were far from the People now-far from watching
eyes that might betray the breaking of the ancient
prohibition that had kept them from coupling until now.

Far to the northeast, Torka and his band continued
traveling into the face of the rising sun. The trek was
long, but they had known longer. The hunting was poor,
but they had known worse. The weather was fitful and
sometimes treacherous, but they had never known any other
kind.
The tundral barrens seemed endless. On and on they
walked, ever closer to the still-distant mountains.
Umak, carrying his daughter on his shoulders, found his
mind drifting, remembering, as he listened to the wind
moving across the barrens . . . whispering . . . sighing
. . . until suddenly he stopped dead. It was not
the wind that was whispering around him; it was the voice of
Eneela.
"Remember me, Shaman. Remember me, and I
will live forever."
He gasped.
"Father! What is it, Father?" asked Li, leaning
down and trying to see his face.
The wind sighed around him. He could not
move. At his right, Honee did not question his reason
for coming to a halt. She was always glad to rest, as was
Naya, who trudged along at his left.
"Listen," he urged them now. "There are voices in
the wind."
They listened but heard nothing and said so.
Their reply was ignored by the shaman. Eneela was with
him, and she was not alone. He felt the cool breath
of the wind on his face, but somehow he knew it was not the
wind- it was the passage of spirits moving in the air
around him.
"Do not grieve for those who are lost, Shaman. And
tell my Simu not to mourn. I walk the wind with
all those who have gone before. I am not alone. Karana
and Mahnie are with me. Old Umak-for whom you are
named-walks the wind at my side with the great dog
Aar, and my Nantu is with me. Together we search for
his lost head. You are Shaman, Umak. The People have
need of your wisdom now more than ever before. Be strong.
Listen to the Seeing Wind. Trust in your power.
Remember me, and do not look back."
The wind dropped.
"Wait!" Umak cried to the ghost of Eneela,
listening for other voices, for a sister, for a twin
brother . . . but if the life spirits of
Demmi and Manaravak walked the wind forever with
Eneela, she had not named them, nor did they speak
to him now. Perhaps they never would. His anger and
possessiveness of Naya had driven them out of
camp.
Umak's wisdom gave heart to his people. Ever
watchful for signs of Life Giver, Torka led
the band through the bog lands and around the tussock
"forests," always seeking areas that might offer
potential browse to mammoth. He found antelope
instead.
The men hunted and killed. They made camp and
rested from their long trek.
Still mourning the ones who were lost, they made no feast,
but they thanked the life spirits of the animals that they had
slain as they ate well for the first time in many days.
They cracked the bones and scooped out the nourishing
marrow until all of it was gone. They prepared the
skins and sinew. They cut the meat that could not be
consumed at one sitting into filets and laid the steaks
across frames of bone to dry in the wind and feeble
light of spring.
It was a good camp, close to a shallow stream, with
budding willows growing tall enough to break the wind. The
women seared ptarmigan and set traps for
ground squirrels and hares. All prepared to stuff
themselves with this sweet, pink meat except Dak, whose
brooding still robbed him of appetite.
Not far away, Larani knelt by her catch. After
selecting two of the plumpest of the squirrels that she
had trapped, she gutted them and stuffed fragrant
gray sprigs of wormwood into their body
cavities. Now, using lengths of freshly removed
gut, she spitted and trussed the squirrels on
long bone skewers, then walked toward the cooking
fire that Summer Moon had raised outside
Simu's pit hut.
"May I roast these animals at the fire of my
father even though they will not be for him?"
Summer Moon cocked her pretty head. "The
heat of this fire is yours as well as mine,
Larani. We will chat while the squirrels
roast."
Larani stared at the flames, wondering if she would
ever be able to approach even the smallest fire without
fear. As she extended her skewers and felt the
strong, vibrant heat emanating from the well-tended
coals, she doubted it. Nevertheless, she held the
meat steady and low. "I have captured these rodents for
my brother and for Kharn. The boy loves the
way I cook squirrel, and Dak has never been
able to resist fresh squirrel stuffed with wormwood
leaves. I am so worried about him, Summer
Moon."
"You are not the only one who worries about Dak,
Larani," the older woman said just as Swan came
to stand beside her, holding a bladder of marrow broth.
"Mother has made this for you, Summer Moon. She
says that it will be good for you and for the baby."
Summer Moon accepted the bladder flask.
"Larani is fixing one of Dak's favorite
foods. Perhaps she might allow you to bring it to him?"
Larani looked up in time to see Swan blush bright
pink. She understood at once. "Of course. Here.
The meat is done just the way he likes it-charred
almost black on the outside, soft and juicy inside
with the meat still as pink as your cheeks!"
Swan's blush deepened, but when Larani handed up
the meat, she did not hesitate to take it.
"Dak?"
He sat unmoving before his sloppily erected
lean-to. He did not answer.
"Dak, may I speak with you?" Swan came
closer, measuring her steps, fearful that he might
suddenly rise and strike out at her for her
earlier impertinence. He had yet to talk to her after
the way she had admonished him the day they had left
the valley of the Great Mad River.
He did not move. With Kharn sitting between his
boots, playing in the mud-and covered from head to foot
with it-Dak sat glaring at the ground.
Swan observed his disheveled appearance and the careless
way that he had erected his shelter and scattered his
belongings before it. She cleared her throat, took a
few steps closer, and kept her face turned down
with utmost deference as she stopped before him, just out of
striking range. "You have hunted. You have brought meat
into the camp, but you have barely eaten. Here. I have
brought these from Larani."
"I am not hungry."
"Your sister worries about you, Dak."
"Go away, Swan. But you can leave the meat for
Kharn."
She did not go away. "The boy needs more than
meat," she suggested softly, handing the skewers down
to him. "A clean face and hands would do no harm, and
he is soaked. Look, the mud has soaked through
his-was
Dak looked up at her. His face was set, and his
eyes were black and hard. "Take him,
then. No doubt that is what your mother and my sister have
sent you here to do. Why did they not come themselves?"
"Because you have disdained their concern and sent them away
several times. And no one "sent" me, Dak. I
have come because I care . . . about Kharn."
"Bah! You need not trouble yourself over my son. As
you see, he is happy enough as long as his belly is
full."
"You forget-Kharn's mother was my sister, and a child needs
more than a full belly to be happy."
"Demmi would not have agreed."
Swan tilted her head to one side. His words had
been so sharp, so contemptuous, but he averted his
eyes when he spoke them, and now he glared down at
the ground again with a muscle throbbing hard at his
jawline. When he gestured her away, she remained
motionless.
"I miss Demmi, too," she whispered after a
moment, then knelt beside him. "And I miss
Eneela. And I am sorry
for the things that I said to you before. I would make them up
to you. I-was
"Go away, Swan. Take the boy with you if it will
make you happy, but leave me alone."
She was suddenly annoyed and impatient with
him. "I will
not
go away! I will stay at your side until you are so
sick of me that you will
have
to eat. I will not go away until you do!"
He looked at her again. "You
are
Demmi's sister, aren't you?"
"I am!" she affirmed proudly.
He shook his head. "Who would have thought that you would
turn out to be such a nasty girl!"
"I am not nasty-you are! Sitting here glowering,
refusing to eat, making everyone worry about you. Have
we not all endured enough worry, enough pain? Your suffering
will not bring Demmi back. And now that she is gone,
how can you dishonor her memory by treating her son as
though he is of no more concern to you than one of the
dogs!"
"She cared no more about him than that," he reminded her
with a resentful snarl.
She snarled back at him. "Well, still do. Come,
Kharn." She reached for the boy and smiled
radiantly at him as, still gnawing on the spitted
squirrels, he came eagerly to her
outstretched hands. "Good boy! Come to Swan.
Look at this mess of a camp that your father has made
for you. Here, my sister's big, brave boy. With you
to help Swan, we will have it-and
you
comcleaned up in no time!"
In the shadows that lay before the lean-to of Simu,
Larani looked wistfully across camp to where Swan
had just scooped up Kharn.
"Dak is irked, but he does not send her away,"
she told Summer Moon. "Perhaps my brother will have
a new woman soon."
Summer Moon thought for a moment. "Simu is
planning to ask Torka to allow you to be Dak's
new woman."
Larani was appalled. "Dak is my brother! It
is forbidden by the headman!"
"Among Torka's people, not among yours."
"Torka's people
are
my people. I have never known any other!"
"Yes, but your father was from another band. And in
creasingly he finds that the customs of my father's people
chafe against his own traditions, his own needs. He
is so unhappy, Larani. Since your mother
died, all he thinks of is the past-of Nantu, of
Eneela, of how it might have been for you if-was
"I will not lie with my own brother to ease my father's
grief!"
Summer Moon looked miserable. "I know, I
know. I have been wanting to tell you the things he has
been saying, but I have not known how! He means well
for you, Larani. He only wants to-was
"I do not need you to speak for me!" Simu, who had
gone off to relieve himself, now stomped forward and
came to an angry halt before his fire pit. He
fixed his woman and his daughter with measuring,
censorial eyes, then turned his gaze completely
upon Larani. "So you will not have your brother, eh?"
"I will not!"
"In the far country of your ancestors you would not have
had a choice!"
"I am not in the far country of my ancestors. I
am here-a woman of Torka's band!"
He exhaled a snorted deprecation. "You're no
woman at all as far as I am concerned-not until
you're mated, not until a man speaks for you and
takes you from your father's hut."
Summer Moon paled. "Simu, please,
don't!"
"Be still! She must hear the truth!"
Larani stood and faced him across the embers of the
fire circle. "If you do not want to be
responsible for me, I will-was
He snorted again; this time the sound held impatience,
and a hint of repentance as well as censure. "Bah,
girl, be silent. Your face is not what it used
to be, and your upper back and burned arm are not a
pretty sight, but you are strong. Your burned arm
works as well as the one that is unburned, and in the
shadows of my hut, I have seen that your breasts and
backside and flanks are still as they once were. A
man could take you to his fire and, in the dark at
least, find pleasure in releasing into you, making new
life in you-new sons to lighten his load when his
years begin to tell upon him. I will talk to Dak before
he and Swan become too-was
Aghast, Larani shook her head. "I will not go
to Dak!" she shouted at him.
"A man is a man. You know that Dak would always
hold a special affection for you. It could be a very
good thing. I have been discussing the possibilities with
Summer Moon. She is right when she says that I
worry about you, Larani. I will talk to Torka about
it soon. After all, it is the headman who
insisted that you be allowed to live, so he is
responsible for you. He
must
see to it that you find a man. Torka will have to break the
traditions of his ancestors and allow you to live as a
woman with your brother, or it will be his obligation
to take you to his own fire!"
Larani went cold. "If you still feel the need
to challenge the ways and the decisions of the headman, then
do so. But you will not use me as your excuse! I am
not fit to be the headman's woman. And I want
no man's pity! Am I not of help to you now that
Summer Moon is with child and Eneela is gone from this
fire circle? Can my father no longer bear to look
at me, even though I earn my meat as a useful
drudge in his camp?"
"Even if you disagree with me, you must be an obedient
daughter. Too much do you challenge me these days.
You must do as I say."
Larani's heart bled. "What else can I do? I
am only a female. But whatever you say
to Torka, no man-not even a brother and most
certainly not a headman-will have a woman with a face and
body as scarred as mine. You are not the only one who
looks away when I come near, my father.
They all look away, all of them except-was She
paused. She could not bring herself to speak his name.
Manaravak!
He had never turned away. He was the one she could
never have . . . unless she died and walked with him in the
spirit world.
That night Naya's head ached, and not even two of
her rapidly diminishing supply of red berries could
fully ease her pain. Honee gave her a mash
of fat and willow oil, which helped, but not enough.
Umak came to offer comfort, but when he lay down behind
her and gently drew her against him, she felt his
heartbeat quicken against her back and his man bone move
and swell and emanate heat against the curve of her
bare buttocks until, frightened, she screamed and
sent him away to Honee's bed furs. He was not
happy with Naya for that, and Honee was not happy with
him for making demands of "her" Naya.
"She is not "your" Naya, woman, she is
mine! And I made no demands on her at all!"
Wanting no part of his women, he snatched up his
robe and went to the far corner of the hut to sleep
alone.
Naya lay still, glad that Umak was not bes.her.
Nevertheless, she remained troubled, wondering
why she was suffering from so many headaches. They were a
thin, bright, constant pain that sometimes became so intense
that she was nearly blinded by it. The gradual
withdrawal of the red berries from her diet seemed
to coincide with their onset.
She puzzled over this. Was it possible that the same
berries that took away pain when eaten could cause
pain when
not
eaten? It did not seem logical to her. Two or
three berries no longer eradicated her pain.
She had to have five or six, and soon they would all
be gone. She moaned with longing and experienced a
twinge of regret as she remembered lana's warning:
Wear them. But do not eat them. We must be wary of
new foods.
Now, with her head so tight and hot with pain that she was
close to vomiting, Naya had no patience with
warnings or with memories, or with any thoughts at
all. She rose. Desperate for relief, she
sought out her medicine bag, fumbled deeply for the few
remaining fruits, and shivering with need, chewed them
greedily.
Long waves of light poured through her. In seconds
the pain was gone. Back in her bed furs
again, Naya fell fast asleep.
Her dreams were of tall, green bushes sagging from the
weight of endless red berries growing round and fat in
the light of the sun . . . andofa young girl dancing
naked, running wild and careless amid the shrubs,
plucking the berries and squeezing them between her fingers.
She rubbed the juices over her body, staining her
breasts and belly and thighs, and laughed as she ran
wild across the golden plain, displaying her body for the
two gray wolves who lay watching . . . waiting
. . . hungry eyed and ravenous for ...
She turned in her sleep. She felt warm, so
warm. Deep within her loins was the need for filling
... for the heat of a man. Although she slept alone, a
faceless, formless man was with her. A warm wind
rose, sweeping over her skin, caressing her breasts
and licking between her thighs.
She touched herself, arched her hips, opened her limbs
wide, and cried "Yes!" to the wind and invited it
to enter her until, groggy and light-headed, she sat
up to find Umak sitting beside her, stroking her brow.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"All . . . right?"
"You have changed your mind?" His voice was deep,
husky with desire as he joined her beneath her
bed furs. "It will be good between us. You will see."
What was he saying? She held up the fur as a
wall between them. She was still asleep, dreaming,
hallucinating. Umak was not Umak; he was a
stranger-not even a man but a black-haired,
featureless buckskin doll that leaned forward to kiss
her. And out of the face that had no eyes or ears or
nose or lips, an aperture gaped wide and
closed upon her mouth as he took her down.
His kiss was suffocating her, sucking the life out of
her body. She was a limp, lifeless vessel through
which the wind was filling her, killing her as it extruded
through her. Suddenly the dreaded nightmare was back.
The beasts were on her-wolves, wanawut, the
terrible, faceless doll, the killing wind . . . and
she was dying in a tide of blood and horror
until-
"Naya! By all the forces of Creation, stop it!"
She blinked. The dream ebbed. Umak was kneeling
beside her, holding her by her shoulders.
"Go away," she whispered. "I am so afraid.
Please, Umak, go away and take my dream with
you."
The look on his face was one of utter confusion-then
dejection, then disgust. He snatched up his
clothes and moccasins and left the hut.
Honee spoke from out of the shadows. "Naya,
to invite a man and then to turn him away is not a
good thing."
"I did not invite him!"
"But you did, my dear girl. You called his name and
begged him to fill you. I heard you quite clearly."
"No!" sobbed Naya, and pulled her bed furs
completely up over her head.
Toward dawn, the ululation of dire wolves woke
the band. Only Umak had been awake for hours.
Restless and frustrated, he had left his lean-to and
had stalked the peripheries of the encampment with
Companion.
"You have more luck with your woman that I do with mine!"
he told the dog. "If only I knew what it
is that frightens her so." He paused, aware that
Torka was standing alone in the fading starlight, staring
eastward, awaiting the rising of the sun.
Glad to be distracted from his thoughts of Naya,
Umak joined him, and for a long while they stood together
in silence. Companion yawned, seated himself, and
sagged a little against the shaman's leg.
"What troubles you, my father?" Umak asked, idly
fondling the top of the big dog's head and
ears.
"Too many things these days, my son." Torka's
voice was low, thoughtful, heavily weighted by worry.
"We have known bad times before. Things will be better
soon."
"Do you speak as Shaman or as a son who longs
to ease his father's heart?"
"As both," replied Umak, and wished that he were as
certain of the last part of his statement as the first.
Torka continued to look eastward. The sun was rising
beyond the serrated ice peaks of the eastern ranges,
leaching away the night, turning the bottom edge of the
sky into soft pinks and golds and throwing the mountains
into starkly black, intimidating silhouette.
"This band is so small. ..." Torka said the words
as a lament. "This land is so big, and the mountains that
lie ahead of us are so high and wide and white."
Even as his father spoke Umak saw that thousands of
tiny dark V's had begun to swarm like blackflies
above the mountains. Wonder and delight filled him as
the V's suddenly began to sparkle. He realized
that what he was seeing was the light of the as-yet-unrisen
sun striking the breasts and wing tips of distant,
migrating waterfowl.
"Look!" he exclaimed, pointing off.
"The birds return to the tundra from out of the rising
sun! And have you ever seen so many? Could we ask for a
better omen, my father?"
Torka looked but was not heartened. "The birds, at
least, seem to know where they are going. Each year at
the same time they fly out of the east, and each year at
the same time they fly back. Where do they go,
Umak? And why, if not to a warmer land-the same land
toward which the great herds turn at the ending of
summer-a place where the time of the long dark never comes
and where the Starving Moon never
rises because there is always game! Think of it,
Umak: a land in which our people would never know cold or
hunger again! For a lifetime I have been seeking it, but
no matter how far I walk, the time of the long dark
always catches up with me, and my people are left in the
cold and dark while the birds disappear and the herds
follow them."
As Umak watched in dismay, Torka allowed his
words to settle into an inner well of bitterness and
frustration. After a moment, the headman shook his head
and exhaled harshly through his teeth.
"With the return of the birds, it is certain that we will
not go hungry in the days ahead. But will we have enough meat
to get us through another winter? I worry.
Your mother worries. There is dissension among my people,
Umak. Somewhere along the way Simu has become
my enemy. I feel him watching me these days,
waiting for me to miscalculate again, to-was
"You? You are Torka! You are headman! Let
Simu think what he will. He has been silenced in
the council."
Torka drew in a deep, steadying breath.
"Because
I am headman, Umak, it hurts me to know that I
have lost the confidence of one who once turned his back
upon his own people and chose to walk at my side. Simu
was once my friend. I know his heart. He blames
me for Larani's burning, for Nantu's death, and for
his and Dak's bereavement ... as though I am not also
bereaved! As though I do not mourn the loss of my own
children! As though I do not stand here in the dawn-
every
dawn-asking the forces of Creation: Are they
truly
dead-and if it is so, is it because of me?"
Umak was taken aback. Never before had Torka
shared so much of himself with him. The shaman was honored and
deeply moved, but the son was disconcerted by the
realization that for all of his father's strength and
wisdom, Torka was nevertheless a man who had been
ripped and savaged by grief.
"We must let them go, my father. Demmi and
Manaravak ... all of them ... we must let them
go. Unless we release their spirits, we will never
regain our own. I have heard the voice of the Seeing
Wind. The ghosts of the past have come to me from the world beyond
this world. They have said that we must walk on, and we must
not look back."
Many days had passed since Demmi had left the
cave to hunt and had returned safely with fresh
meat for herself and her brother. Now she awoke with a
start and lay very still, staring up into the predawn darkness
of the cave. The sounds that had awakened her were
unmistakable: wanawut. One moment they were full
of growling threats and anger; the next they were
high-pitched, ear-stinging screams such as a woman
might make if she were being disemboweled. Now they were
settling into a long, ululating series of moans and
hoots and terrible, cacophonous wailings. This was not
the first time she had heard them since discovering their
tracks, but the howl that had awakened her was from inside
the cave.
Now, though, the sound was far away and growing very faint.
Afraid, she stared off, listening, until
the rising of the sun. The wanawut were silent at
last, and Manaravak spoke. He was sitting
cross-legged in the gloom at the far edge of the
cave, with his half of the rough bearskin around his
shoulders.
"They have hunted well."
"How long have you been awake?" she asked him.
"Long . . . listening and sounding to my brothers and
sisters as they hunt at the far side of the world."
"You woke me with your sounding. Don't do it again.
One of these nights your howling is going to draw them
right into the cave, Manaravak. When they attack us
and try to make a meal of us, you will see that they are
not
your brothers or your sisters!"
The light of dawn was beginning to flood into the cave in
a thin, colorless tide. It shone upon the face of
her brother, defining his scars, his strong, handsome
features, and long, introspectively narrowed
black eyes.
"They have brought down moose," he said. "Big and
old but strong enough to bring pain to one of them as they
killed it. Perhaps one of them is dead."
She shivered. "You think too much of the wanawut, my
brother. You cannot possibly know what they
are hunting!"
"I know. They have told me ... as they have told me
that they are lonely. There are so few of them left in
all of this world. If they do not find more females
soon, there will be none of them left at all."
A strange, skin-prickling coldness within
Demmi's body intensified. Manaravak had
changed since he had fled into the storm. Since they
had come to the cave, nothing that she said or did had
been able to stanch the flow of his brooding or drive the
word
wanawut
from his mind.
She observed him from beneath a furrowed brow. "Torka
has taught all his children to tell the difference between
animals' sounds of stress or hunger or pain.
But animals have not the gift of words, my brother.
I cannot believe that they can tell you what they hunt
or why they are lonely."
He looked at her with sad eyes. "Unlike men
and women, Demmi, the wanawut have no need of words
with which to confuse one another."
"You are
not
a wanawut!"
"No?" A bitter smile played at the corners
of his mouth. "I have spoken the words of man, but you do
not understand or believe me when I speak. The
language of the wild and the ways of the wanawut are
better. And until now, between Demmi and
Manaravak there has never been a need for words."
The truth stung, and she replied defensively.
"Until now Manaravak has tried to be a man,
not a beast. You have been hurt by Three Paws and
weakened by the Great Mad River. But you will be
completely well soon, strong enough to-was
"No, Demmi." His face was set. "Can you still not
understand, my sister? You have always come closest to knowing
my heart. Can you not see into it now? The bear and the
river have not weakened me; my people have done that. They say
that I am a man-but everything I have ever done as a
man has offended them and tormented my heart. My
spirit is one with the wild andwiththe beast wanawut. Perhaps the
time has come for me to walk with them again."
Horror-stricken, Demmi was on her feet in an
instant. The morning wind sent shivers into her naked
body as she crossed the cave and dropped to her
knees before him. Gripping his shoulders hard with both
hands, she forced him to face her as she shook him
ferociously.
"Never!" she cried. "I have not turned my back
upon my people to follow you into the storm so that I might stand
by and watch you walk off with beasts. And if you imagine
that I will walk at your side as one of them, then
truly we do not understand each other!"
"You should not have followed me, Demmi."
"Should, should not, what matter? We are together now. I
will not give you up to the wanawut!"
Still kneeling naked before him with her hands gripping his
shoulders and her breasts pressing warm against his chest,
she kissed him on his brow, at each temple, and
along the line of the scar that ran to the edge of his mouth.
And then she kissed him on the mouth.
When she drew back, a look of triumph
crossed her face, and then an expression that
betrayed mixed and tumultuous emotions. She
knelt back, rested her palms upon her thighs, and
stared at him out of narrowed eyes. "Are you a man
of the People or a wanawut? Which, Manaravak? Or
is Dak right when he says that you are both?"
He stared back at her, confused. He snarled at
his sister.
"Do not be angry with me, Manaravak. We must
nurture and look out for one another." She pressed
her body against his and wrapped her arms
tenderly about his head. She held him gently, made
of him a consenting captive as she moved slowly
back and forth, swaying on her knees like a supple,
sun-warmed tree in the soft wind of the rising dawn.
How could he be angry? Her body was speaking to him
of her love and repentance, of her need for his
forgiveness and affection. He gave both with strong,
sure, upward strokes of his hands along her
flanks and sides and firm, full buttocks.
She sighed and moved closer. The scent of her was
pure woman. The texture of her breasts against his
cheek was like that of the warm, silken belly of a
lactating animal. Instinctively, he moved his
face, mouthed them, and heard her gasp and felt her
nipples peak and harden against the movement of his
tongue and the sure, steady draw of his mouth.
"I could not love a beast," she whispered as she bent
to kiss the top of his head. "You
are
a man, Manaravak! A man of the People! Never
doubt that! I want you so much, Manaravak . . .
over so many years I have wanted you."
Far to the east, Umak stopped midway in the
conversation that he was having with the other men of the band and
turned to the south. A feeling in his gut
told him that Manaravak and Demmi were still alive.
Was it premonition or false hope? He shook his
head. Would he never be resigned to their death? Even
if by some wondrous magic they were to return, their
presence would complicate things, for Swan had made
herself a part of Dak's fire circle, and his own
relationship with Naya was bound to improve. Perhaps, in
the end, things had worked out best for all concerned?
The thought disconcerted him. His brother and sister and the
first woman of Simu were dead. How could that be "best"
for anyone? He shrugged the question away and turned
back to the others.
Torka was speaking sternly. "Swan has taken her
sleeping furs to the fire circle of Dak without the
consent of the headman or of-was
"Of Dak!" the son of Simu defended himself
hotly.
"You have not sent her away," reminded Torka.
"I have! More than once. She always comes back!
She sneaks up on me when I am not looking,
builds up a fire, and cooks a meal-for love of
my boy, she says."
Umak appraised his friend knowingly. "Not for you, eh?"
"I haven't laid a hand on her."
Torka let the statement settle a moment
before asking: "Why not?"
Umak was taken aback by his father's completely
unexpected question. So were the others.
Dak was openly amazed. "I ... she ... I
mean . . . your daughter Swan is a good new
woman, Torka, but I mourn for Demmi. My
sister looks after me. Larani is enough."
"Larani!" Simu interrupted vehemently. "Do you
hear that, Torka? Larani's a better choice for
my Dak in a band that might otherwise be burdened
by a poor, scarred, ugly woman. Swan, now,
she is strong and pretty and sound of flesh. No
use wasting a new woman like her on my Dak when
he does not want her!"
Umak saw Torka's face work against ill-contained
anger as the headman cautioned, "I have warned you before,
Simu. It is forbidden for brothers and sisters to be
man and woman with one another."
"Among
your
people! Not among mine."
Dak eyed Simu with disgust and disbelief. "Is
Larani such a burden to you, my father? As long as I
am able to lift a spear, I will hunt for her and see
to it that she is kept warm
in the winter dark, even if you will not! I do not have
to take her as my woman in order to assure her
place in this band."
Torka's eyes narrowed. "Bold words, Dak, from
one who has been all but useless in this camp! I have
watched you, waiting for you to behave as a man again-to
hunt with enthusiasm, to show interest in your son,
to join with your people in the fellowship of camp life-but
to no avail. Your behavior is an offense to me and
to the spirits of your ancestors! You must look to the
future again, son of Simu. Demmi is the past,
and Swan has looked at you as a man."
"And I have not looked back!"
Umak winced. He knew that Dak had intended no
insult to Swan. Nevertheless, he had given it.
Torka sat motionlessly, seemingly unperturbed as
he turned his gaze to Grek's older son.
"Tankh, perhaps it is time for you to think of taking a
woman. You are young, but Swan is not so much older.
In a band as small as this, our women
must
be mated! Since you now hunt as a man and sit in
council as a man, Tankh, perhaps it is time for you
to-was
"Wait!" Dak protested. From the look
on his face it was apparent that he had never thought of the
possibility of Swan's going to another man. It
was a possibility that he did not like at all.
Tankh, meanwhile, had shrunk visibly within his
furs, and a
whoof
of pure relief went out of him.
Insight stabbed the shaman, and he understood that
Torka was not only acting on Swan's behalf but
had seen into Dak's heart and guessed a truth that was
only now beginning to dawn upon the son of Simu.
Demmi would live forever within Dak's heart, but she
was beginning to share that space with the infinitely more caring and
attentive Swan.
Torka nodded solemnly. "Swan has taken her
bed furs to your fire circle, Dak. Whether this
has been to look after Kharn or to lie with you, only
the two of you can say. What matters is that she
acts of her own will and honors you with her concern.
By your failure to reciprocate, you dishonor her,
me, and your people. After all that our people have endured, it would
be a good thing to celebrate the joining of a new woman
to a man of the band."
Simu looked up at the headman and snapped like a
riled dog, "Bah! Had it not been for the
granddaughter of Grek, we
would
have had cause to celebrate! We
would
have had cause to prepare a ceremony that joined a
new woman to a man of the band!"
"Be silent, Simu!" Torka demanded. "The
matter of Naya has been settled by this council.
Do not bring it up again." The headman turned
to Dak. "As the custom of our ancestors
decrees, Dak will hunt. He will bring back
new-woman gifts of meat and skins to honor
Swan. When he has returned with these gifts, he
will formally accept responsibility for her before an
assembly of the People, or I will give her to Tankh
now backslash was
As Dak caught his breath Tankh's face went
pale with dread.
Dak remained silent. What Torka was proposing
meant Dak's acknowledgment and acceptance of
Demmi's death.
"Well?" Torka prodded. "What is your
decision?"
At last Dak conceded without the slightest trace of
emotion: "For Kharn's sake I will
hunt. For Kharn's sake I will bring the bride
gifts. I would not dishonor or bring shame to the
sister of my Demmi. I will take Swan as my
woman."
Simu was still growling to himself. His eyes were glinting like
black embers. "And what of my Larani? Who will
mate with her, eh? Who will bring new-woman gifts
to honor
my
daughter? Whose babies will take life from her
belly in a camp where the headman says that all
women must be mated?"
Tankh shrank within his furs again until Torka
spoke.
"Mine . . . if she will have me."
"If?" Simu was grinning like a happy wolf. "You
are the headman of the band! Of course she will have you!"
Far away beneath the wide, windswept vault of the
Arctic sky, ravens flew across the face of the sun
and the animals of the tundral world looked toward the
hills. A wolf howled within the cave to which the great
mammoth had brought the son and daughter of Torka.
But it was not a wolf; it was a man. It was
Manaravak.
And as he rode his sister to sexual
completion he took her from behind, like a wolf.
Demmi whispered, "Wait! Manaravak, not like this!
You go too deep, too fast, and I think I am with
child. Stop, please stop."
He heard, but her words were a distraction to him. He
would not waste his time with them now! Demmi had roused
man need in him, and now his need was driving
him-pure, mindless, male-animal need that swelled
and throbbed and took him deeper and deeper into her.
Demmi cried out in pain. "No! No ... too
soon . . . wait ..." Release came as it
always did with him, violently and quickly. The molten
force of his life burst through his loins like magma searing
through fissures in the flesh of the earth itself.
Still ejaculating, he gripped her breasts when she
tried to crawl away, and gripping them tightly, he
pulled her back and forced her to take him deeper still.
When she tensed and twisted and tried to pull away,
he would not allow it. No woman had ever told him
to wait, although lana had always tried to gentle his
"wolfish ways," and Naya had screamed in terror
of them.
Naya.
His heartbeat quickened at the memory of her-so small
and pretty, so soft of flesh, so moist of
mouth and sweet between the thighs. Umak would be her man
now-perhaps even riding her now.
Incredibly, Manaravak's organ was swelling
again. He was salivating, growling with prolonged
ecstasy as he began to thrust again deeper, harder,
hotter, until Demmi fell forward begging him
to stop. He could not have stopped if he had wanted
to. He stayed on her, pumping until she
screamed in protest and flailed her arms back at
him. He kept on moving, thrusting, exhaling a
single name again and again in rhythm with the jabbing of his
hips.
"Naya. Naya. Naya!" Her name came through his
clenched teeth. He saw no reason not to speak it.
Demmi had always known his heart. Why then did she
go suddenly limp?
"Why am I not enough for you?"
The question angered him.
Not enough?
What did she mean? His organ filled her,
burned and pulsed with sensation as it was encompassed by the
moist, throbbing warmth of her body. What more could she
want? What more could
he
want?
Naya.
He wanted Naya. But the granddaughter of Grek
was far away. Demmi was here. Demmi had offered
herself to him. Why was she now trying to pull away?
He was suddenly furious. He did not understand the
females of his kind. He had seen the matings of
wild animals. Never had he seen a female
animal try to run away once the male was up and
buried deep inside her.
His thoughts confirmed his actions. As Demmi tried
to separate, his organ was leading him forward. He
followed ferociously. Still gripping her, he thrust
harder. He was a wolf! He was a lion! He was
a wanawut! Once mounted on a
female, he would not be driven off. Once aroused,
the sensory excitement that was to be found upon a
female, any female, could not be denied. All that
mattered was the moment, and the pleasure and satisfaction
that he found within it.
As the last of his fire extruded into her, he threw
back his head and howled again and again in the pure
bestial ecstasy of an orgasm that shook him to his
very soul.
Wolves and lions responded to his cry, and far
away to the south, the wanawut knew the sound
that he made and, recognizing it as belonging to one of
their own, howled in response.
And as the power went out of his arms and limbs, he
fell sideways, with a stunned, hurting,
unfulfilled, and disappointed Demmi still in his arms.
Sated at last, he relaxed and, still joined to his
sister, slept like a contented beast and dreamed of
Naya and of Larani and never heard the words that left
Demmi's mouth or saw the tears that fell from her
eyes.
"You
are
an animal!" she sobbed, and as she listened to the
sounds of hunting beasts howling in the world below the cave,
she thought of Dak-of her strong, steady Dak and of their
many lovemakings during which he had spoken her name again
and again, as Manaravak had spoken Naya's.
She wept from disappointment. Her brother had coupled
with her out of man need, not for love or even a
specific desire for her. He might have been
pounding an orifice in a rock for all that she meant
to him. The realization struck her to her heart. She
closed her eyes, and as she laid her hand across her
belly and felt the movement of Dak's unborn child,
her spirit ached for want of him and for all the
wrongs that she had done to him, and she knew at last
that he had been right about her brother all along:
Manaravak had lived too long among beasts not to have
become one of them.
"Oh, Dak ..." She trembled as she spoke his
name. "How I long to see you again and to lie beside you and
Kharn as I tell you of our child that is to come; Oh,
Dak, do not forget your Demmi, who will now live
only for the day when she will walk at your side as your
woman once more ... a woman who will never want
to lie with her brother again!"
his

"You shame me," Lonit whispered as she knelt
before her tallow lamp in the center of the headman's
hut and looked across its glow at Torka.
He met her eyes-soft, antelope eyes that he
had loved for nearly all of his lifetime-and explained
again, "You must understand me, Woman of My Heart!
It is what I must do. Simu set his trap, and
I walked into it. For Larani's sake, what else
can I do? You are my always-and-forever woman, but-was
"But!" She cut him short with an impatient snap
to her voice. "There is no room for "b"' in this
conversation. I am not shamed because you have asked
for Larani. You shame me by actually believing that I
would not understand! Seeing what Simu has been up
to, I can't imagine why you have not asked for the girl
before now. Poor child! How her pride must be aching.
We must make her welcome, Torka. We must
make up to her for all the pain that she has suffered."
"We?"
"Of course! You will have a new woman in Larani,
and I will have a new daughter to sit beside our fire again
now that Summer Moon and Swan have men of their own,
and Demmi is-was She paused. "I dream of her so
often ... of my lost girl . . . and my lost
son. I know the Seeing Wind has brought a vision
of their death, but I still cannot believe that they are-was
"Speak of it no more, Woman of My Heart. I,
too, still grieve for them. I grieve also for what
I must do now, for although I will speak for Larani, my
spirit belongs to you alone."
"You shame me." For the second time a woman
spoke these words within the encampment of Torka.
Larani's accusation stung the air of her father's pit
hut.
"Shame?" Simu was incredulous. "You-who in any
other
band would never have a man at all-will now have the
best of all men!"
"The best of all ..." Larani turned the words
softly as her thoughts went running back across the
years. She saw herself as a child lying close beside the
headman's fire, with Naya and Swan on either
side of her. The secret yearnings of three young
girls echoed out of the past to mock her now. They had
all longed for the best of men-and now Naya had
Umak, and Swan had Dak, and Larani had . .
. dreams of Manaravak. She sighed. They were
enough. She wanted no more.
Simu laughed triumphantly and slapped his
thighs. "This old hunter has laid his snares
well. Just look what I have won for my girl,
eh?"
Larani winced. "You are not so old," she told her
father honestly and then, with an equal measure of truth
added, "I have no wish to become Torka's
woman."
Simu's smile dissolved.
"As a new woman who has never been with a man, the
right of choice is mine. I will not have him. Nor will
I take a boy like Tankh to my bed furs."
"But you must be mated! Don't you
want
to be mated?"
"Once, yes. Long ago. No more. What you ask
of me, Father . . . the shame would be worse than the
pain of my burns."
"Shame? What are you talking about? Imagine it,
Larani! Even now Torka prepares to go out from
camp with Dak to hunt for new-woman gifts. No
one in our family has ever been so honored!"
"I am not honored. I am pitied. It is not the
same thing."
"And what about me?" he shouted. "Have you no pity for
me? What about my shame, eh? To look at you each
day, to see what you have become! Torka has brought
this misery on you by allowing you to live! He is
responsible for you! He
must
honor you! It is his obligation. And as my
daughter, it is your obligation to accept him!"
"I would rather die," she said coolly.
"Then do it!" he roared. "Refuse Torka, and from
this day you will receive no meat or shelter from me!"
Larani's head went up. "So be it, then," she said
evenly, andwitha great, hot lump in her throat that would
not be
swallowed down, she rose, turned, and
began to gather up her things.
"Larani ..." Simu's voice broke; he,
too, had a lump in his throat, it seemed. "I do
not want this."
She did not move. "Nor do I."
"Then when Torka comes to speak for you, say yes
to him."
She sighed and closed her eyes lest tears spill
onto her cheeks. "Torka wants no female
other than Lonit. What he has conceded to you has
been done out of kindness and pity. To accept gifts from
him, to go to his hut, to know that Torka will force himself
to be a man with me . . . these things I will not allow.
Truly, my father, he
is
the best of men. And although you mean well for me, I
would
rather die than say yes to him."
And so it was that when Torka came to the hut of
Simu, Larani came out to greet him with words of
refusal.
"I have spread myself for no man," informed Larani.
"According to the ancient customs of Torka's people, a
virgin may claim the right of first choice. This
woman will
not
take a man . . . any man . . . until she
is ready."
Torka was completely taken aback. He had not
expected to be turned down, and he most certainly
did not expect to feel disappointment now that he had
been. Indeed, the girl had bruised his ego
soundly. His brow curved downward as he looked at
her strong, marred face, her straight back, and the
way her fine, high breasts swelled the fabric of
her tunic. Even with scars, Larani's character made
her beautiful to Torka. How could Simu not see
this? And how had his sons been blind to it and turned their
attention to Naya when a girl of Larani's worth
had been there for the taking?
"This woman will not offend the headman of her band!"
Simu was seething. "And no longer will this man feed
or clothe her."
Torka's brow came down. "I am not offended,"
he informed the hunter. "Larani will choose a mate.
Soon. Won't you, Larani? But now she is right.
After all she has endured, she has earned the right
to choose her first man. There are already two
pregnant women in this camp. Dak is about to hunt
new-women gifts for Swan. If the Father
Above and Mother Below smile upon their union, perhaps
yet another belly will swell like a full moon in
this camp. It is good. If
your father will not feed or shelter you, Larani, you will be
welcome within the circle of my protection-as my
daughter or sister or woman, whichever you prefer."
He could feel Lonit's eyes upon him and was glad
that she stood behind him-he was blushing like a callow
youth.
Larani's eyes softened.
"I thank you," she said sincerely, and would have added more
had Dak not spoken up with obvious antagonism
toward his sire.
"As I have said in council, there is always a place
for Larani at my fire circle!"
"Good." Simu's head was down, his eyes were
narrowed, and as he whirled away and sought the privacy
of his pit hut he had the look of a cornered wolf
about him. "She will need it, because she is no longer
welcome at mine!"
Dak took up his spears and hefted his pack
frame of caribou antlers. Swan came to him and
asked him if he had everything he needed. "I do not
really want gifts. You are enough for me. I will be a
good woman, Dak. You will not be sorry that
I have come to share your fire."
"I am sorry now!" he told her, and went his
way, but even as he spoke he knew that he was
lying. He was not sorry, he was guilty. Demmi
was dead and her younger sister shared his fire and his hut.
. . and he was much too glad. So glad that he was
delighted when Umak called out to him and redirected
his thoughts.
"Hold! Wait for me!" The shaman and the big
dog, Companion, were at his side in a moment.
"Tradition demands that your spear brother accompany
you on this hunt."
Dak eyed Umak. He appeared to be ready for a
long trek. "What tradition is that, old friend?
I've never heard of it."
Umak winked. "Neither have I, but if I don't
get away from Naya and Honee for a while ... I
need a hunt, old friend. It will make me a new
man again! Come on. The sooner we have the camp behind
us and are off across open country, the better I am
going to feel!"
Demmi sat at the mouth of the cave and watched the
sun rise over the eastern mountains. Caribou were
already cropping lichens on the plain that bisected the
southern ranges,
and she had no doubt that when the grass greened with the
rising of the next moon, big game would follow.
She rose and stretched, contented with the knowledge that she and
Manaravak would soon prepare traveling packs and
set out to find the P.
Demmi turned to scan the face of the cliff and was not
surprised when she saw no sign of her brother.
She had been nasty since their last coupling. He was
understandably avoiding her.
The baby moved within her. It was the slightest of
swimming sensations, and as often happened since she had
coupled with Manaravak, it was accompanied by nausea
and dizziness, and sometimes, afterward, there were traces of
blood on her tunic. Worried, she talked to the
unborn child as though it could understand every word.
"It is my fault, you know, not Manaravak's.
He is what he is, and I have expected far too
much of him. And now I am short-tempered with him because
of you. I have been selfish and have broken with the ways of
our ancestors and have not cared about you until now. I
am sorry that I let Manaravak hurt you. He
did not mean to. He knows about females and mating
and cubs, but he does not understand about women and loving
and babies. There is a difference, you see. I will
try to make him understand. It will make things
easier for him when we at last return to the band."
She paused, distracted by movement in the canyon.
She stood and peered down onto the canopy of
spruce and budding hardwoods as she tried to see
what walked there. Whatever it was was lost to view beneath
the trees. Her curiosity almost prompted her
to climb down to investigate, but before she went
hunting, she wanted to make things right with her brother.
"Manaravak! Manaravak! I want to talk to you.
I am sorry for behaving so badly! Manaravak!"
She paused, waiting for a reply. None came.
She did not blame him. Had he treated her as she
had treated him, she would not be speaking to him, either.
The lake was not wide, but it seemed endless. For the
last five days Dak, Umak, and Companion had
been following the shoreline into increasingly bleak
country, until the lake separated itself into many
streams. It was as inhospitable a landscape as they
had ever seen. Apart from lichens, mosses,
and severely weather-stunted scrub growth, there was no
vegetation. The few trees that they literally stumbled
over grew laterally, with miniature branches and
trunks pressed flat to the tundral earth, veining
their way around rocks and through crevices to stay out of the
wind and to absorb as much sunlight as the
cold, clouded sky would allow.
"I do not like this place," said Dak. "We should go
back."
"If you are ever to find gifts for Swan and if I
am ever going to find a fresh source of berries for
Naya, we will have to keep going until we come
into better country than this."
"Berries? Is that all that the granddaughter of
Grek wants you to bring her? Not furs or rare
feathers?"
"Naya has used up the last of those odd little dried
fruits. She longs for more."
They slogged on. It had been raining off and on
since their second day out from camp-not a hard,
driving rain, but a soft, whispering, wind-tattered
drizzle that seemed to be no more than an afterthought of the
clouds. Their waterproof rain capes and overboots
of oiled intestine kept them dry. A square of the
same material was laced across the back of the dog
to protect Companion and the side packs that he
carried. They snared and ate a few ground
squirrels, and using portions of leftover
squirrel livers as lures, they stoned several
raucous, raven-sized, hook-beaked birds of a
species that was unknown to them. The meat of the
birds was disappointing-red and stringy-but they took the
skins with care, agreeing that the gray-blue feathers
would make a start on the bride gifts that they were
supposed to be collecting for Swan.
"You don't really want to take her as your woman
at all, do you, Dak?"
"Demmi is my woman."
"Will you
never
accept that Demmi is dead?"
Their eyes met and held. "Demmi is a part of
me, Umak. I cannot just put her out of my mind and
heart." He made a rude snort of derision and
crushed one of the feathered skins in his hand. "Swan is
a fine woman, Umak, and I have come to care for her
. . . perhaps too much. But sometimes, even though I
am not a shaman, I know that Demmi lives-she and
your wild fool of a wanawut brother. I feel
them both.
Here."
He let the feathered skin drop as he splayed his
hand across his heart. "Do you ever feel them?
Do you never fight against the need to go in search of them just
one more time?"
"No." The word was clipped and tight.
Umak wondered if Dak could sense it was a lie.
He reached down and picked up the crumbled skin of the
strange bird. "Come," he urged. "We must
flesh and dry these skins and prepare them for packing
before we can go on. They will make Swan smile, and
if Demmi watches from the spirit world, I am sure that
she will smile, too."
Demmi was not smiling. Manaravak was gone. She was
standing in the cave with her back to the wall, her bola
armed and ready in one hand and her spear in the other. It
did not matter. The wanawut kept on coming.
There were seven of them-all adult males except
two, and one of these, although female, was a creature
of massive and dangerously powerful proportions.
Only the leader of the pack, a big silver-backed
male, was larger and more menacing.
Demmi's breath caught in her throat. Terror and
incredulity flared simultaneously within her and
numbed her senses. She did not throw her spear.
She did not whirl her bola. She
knew
this beast! It stared at her like a huge, stump-legged,
slouch-shouldered man out of small gray eyes that
glinted dangerously above its long cylindrical
snout. When it leaned forward, swaying
slowly as it balanced its weight upon the huge
knuckles of its clawed and hairy hands, she knew
exactly where and when she had seen it before.
"You!" The word was a barely audible whisper of
recognition of the nightmare image that she had seen in
the fog so long ago and so far away. Dak had
mocked her, had assured her that she had been
imagining it, but there
had
been something in the fog-something big and male and
threatening.
She recognized the massive musculature of its
furred body, the shaggy, grizzled mane bristling
along its upper back and shoulders, the short, thick
neck, and its face. . . . She felt sick at
the sight of its face.
There was no fog to confuse her vision now. She saw
the projecting brow ridge humping up out of the
sloping, flattened cranium, the pointed, yet
grotesquely manlike ears set low at the side
of its head, the broad-lipped mouth that was pulled
back to reveal stabbing teeth as long and deadly as a
lion's, and the flaring, hairless nostrils that expanded
as it smelled her fear.
Excited by her scent, it exhaled a
series of deep, quick huffs and swayed more quickly on
its hind limbs. At its back, the other wanawut
were clearly agitated, salivating as they moved
forward.
"No!" Demmi stood her ground. Spear in hand,
bola at ready, she had nowhere to run. Only her
knowledge of Manaravak's love for these creatures stayed
her hands. Perhaps he was right? Perhaps they only
looked
dangerous? "Get back! Get away from me!"
They stopped. Their eyes were fixed upon her-curious,
not cruel-the steady, unblinking, compassionless eyes of
carnivores appraising a prey animal that was about
to become meat.
Demmi felt sick. Where was Manaravak? When and
if he ever returned to the cave, he would be lucky
if he could recognize any of the fragments that his
beloved beasts might leave of her bones . . . and the
bones of her unborn child.
The child!
"Get back!" she commanded the wanawut with a newfound
ferocity and courage. "For the sake of my brother
who, by some magic that I will never understand, was raised
to be one of you, I give you one last chance!"
The wanawut reacted to her threat. The
silver back stood erect. He pounded his chest in
outrage as the big female screeched and charged.
Demmi hurled her spear and then, whirling her
bola, she sent the stones flying.
A single scream rode the north wind. It was the
sound of someone dying.
Manaravak stopped and stood absolutely still. Again
he heard a scream. It was from far away and thinned
by distance, clinging to the wind like a dying spirit. His breath
rasped in his throat, and his heart leaped in his chest.
High, raging screeches of agony were followed by a
terrible silence that spoke to him of pain and blood and
death.
"Wanawut!" The word escaped his lips in longing
and with empathy.
Silence settled over the world again. It was broken
only by the mocking slur of the wind and the long,
pain-filled, desolate wails of a faraway
woman.
"Demmi! Have you killed them, Demmi? Or-was A
dev-
as Bating possibility nearly dropped him where he
stood. "Or have they killed you?"
He could not bear the thought. He had abandoned her, his
fine new clothes, and his new spears,
to rejoin the world of beasts. He had been certain that
Demmi would come to no harm, but she was alone!
"Sister!" He sped back toward the cave and tried
not to think of what he would find when he reached it, because
now, for the first time, he knew in his heart that he had
been lying to himself. The ghost of Nantu told him so
... the ghost of the long-dead boy who had walked into the
fog one night to lose his head-not to Three Paws but
to the beast that Manaravak had seen running off with it
into the mists- the beast that he had not wanted to see . .
. the beast that had been trailing his People all along .
. . the beast wanawut!
Umak, Dak, and Companion followed growing
numbers of wheeling, screaming seabirds northward
across the delta of the Great Mad River. Joined
by yet another north-flowing river, it had struck out
across the barrens until now, broken, gentled, and
divided into many lesser streams, it poured on and on.
Umak and Dak paused where no men had ever stood
before-on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. They stood
amazed. Never had they seen so large a "lake."
Slowly, Umak walked forward to become the first
human to stand upon this shore and make a cup of his
palm so that, as he knelt, he might drink of this
strange and wondrous body of water. His
taste buds sparked with the pleasurable sting of salt.
He had no word for it-any more than he had a name for the
aggressive, hook-billed, ferret-eyed gulls that
wheeled overhead, or for the many large, unusually lean
and long-legged white bears that were fishing and feeding not
far away on a wide sandbar that lay within one of the
innumerable streams of the delta.
He and Dak marveled at the uncountable legless
beasts that barked like dogs and yet had the tails and
fins of fish. The largest among these possessed
tusks like mammoth and bellowed like moose, while
others were whiskered like lions and made odd orfcing
sounds as they lazed in huge herds along the beach or
oozed their way on and off the offshore rocks and
icebergs to swim in the lake with ease.
"This water tastes of blood," Dak shouted as he
knelt beside Umak. The sound of the sea and the many
rivers and
streams and vast herds of bellowing, orJking
animals was deafening. "And of tears and sweat."
"Yes, as though it were a living thing."
Umak rose and scanned the shoreline. A slow,
deep excitement was rising to fill him. "So
many . .
dis8he said with reverence.
"Yes, but so many
what?
Are you sure that they are real and not bad spirit
animals? They are ugly enough."
"Do not insult them when we have only just met their kind
for the first time! They are real enough, if we are
to judge from the stink of their droppings and the sight of their
many newborn. Look: The birds are feeding upon the
afterbirths-a sure sign that these creatures are
living animals and not spirits. And to a hunter of the People,
no animal is ugly unless it is not edible or if
its skin proves useless."
"You aren't suggesting that we hunt these . . . things?"
"Why not?" Umak answered. "We have come to hunt.
Would the spirits of these animals not be offended if we
did not think enough of their worth to lift a spear to them so
that we might see what they are made of?"
Dak mulled over the shaman's reasoning. After a
moment, he found it sound enough.
And so, with Companion running ahead and doing his best
to herd the creatures that men of another epoch would
call walrus, Umak and Dak were soon baffled
by the creatures' behavior. Having never seen a
human being before, the animals made no move
to flee. Umak and Dak waded into the herd,
avoiding nips and occasional charges that twice
overran newborn animals and crushed the life out
of them. Perplexed and disgusted by the stupidity and
passivity of the big animals, Umak and Dak
moved away, reticent to kill such unworthy
prey. But then Companion roused a male that was as
big as a long-horned bull bison. Its tusks
were nearly as long as Dak and Umak were tall.
While its harem looked on, the beach master was
baited by Umak and Dak. Despite a lack of
legs, the courageous animal moved with disconcerting
speed when provoked into a charge. At length their
spears struck deep and true, and soon they were
hunkering at the edge of the herd, feasting at their kill
site and sharing the eyes and rich, odd-tasting meat and
fat with the dog.
"It isn't bad," Dak conceded.
"A man could develop a liking for it!" Umak
remarked.
"Yes, and many lamps could burn all winter long
if fed with the fat from only one of these creatures. Have
you ever seen more fat on an animal in all your
life?"
Umak shook his head. "I have not found any berry
bushes for Naya, but I will bring fat for
her lamp and fat enough for old Grek, too! This will
make her look kindly at me when we return."
Dak looked at him askance. "Does she not look
kindly at you now? How does Honee react when
all you do is speak of Naya?"
"I will bring fat for Honee's lamp, too!" His
appetite sated, Umak wiped the grease of his
meal on his face to keep his skin oiled and stared off
to where the white bears were fishing-bears that he and Dak
had taken care to keep at a distance and on the right
side of the wind. His mood shifted instantly.
"Look:
white,
all of them. Including the cubs!"
Dak looked but did not seem impressed. "Given
all that has happened, I have had enough of hunting the
bear kind."
"But what a bride gift one of their pelts would be
for Swan! And for Naya-I mean for
both
my women-and for my little Li."
Dak eyed the bears thoughtfully. "I would not like
to return to camp without something worth showing. We
might manage to bring back a pelt or two and still
come away with our own skins and scalps ...
if the forces of Creation will smile upon our effort."
Umak nodded, full of enthusiasm. The sound of the
sea, the smell of the air, and the lay of this land
appealed to him. Excitement was stirring deep within him
again. "Beside this Lake of Watered Blood is enough
meat to feed the People for endless moons! And bone and
tusks and sinew and skins! Indeed, everything we need
to live is here! Perhaps the forces of Creation are
smiling upon us! Do you see it, Dak?"
Dak looked around dubiously. "I see open
country. I see many rivers running to a cold
lake with mountains of ice in it."
"And I see high ground over there upon which a good,
dry camp could be made. And I see mountains of
meat for the People!"
"But what kind of meat? Not caribou. Not bison.
Not elk. Not horse or moose or-was
"If these animals stay by this lake all winter-or
even if they migrate into these waters to bear their young
on this
shore during the spring-then perhaps, after all that we have
endured, the Seeing Wind has led us north to show us
that we need not always search for the big game of the open
steppe. Perhaps we have found a new land of meat upon which
to nourish ourselves! Look around, Dak.
What better omen could there be for any of us? Perhaps the
bad times are behind us at last! Perhaps the Seeing
Wind has led us north to discover the luck that
Torka has been seeking!"
Watching the feeding bears, Dak remained thoughtful.
"Maybe. We will rest, sharpen our spears, and
make chants to the life spirits of our intended prey.
Next we will hunt. Then we will see."
Although Umak's blood was already rising for the hunt,
he knew that Dak was not thinking of killing bears or
of the fine white pelts that he would bring to Swan. As
Dak scanned the beauty of this strange northern land
it did not take a shaman to know from the mournful look
on his face that he was still thinking of Demmi.
It was dark within the cave. Manaravak could smell
blood everywhere. Gore slipped beneath his bare feet.
He paused and tried to stop shaking. It was
unnaturally, almost hideously quiet. He did not
speak. Words-even the name of his sister-refused to form
upon his tongue. What matter? Words were his enemies.
He would know the truth of what had happened soon enough
without them.
He took a bold step forward only to draw back
in fear and revulsion. Something lay dead at his
feet. He could just make out the body. It
was gray in the darkness-drained of blood even as the
interior of the cave was drained of light. He saw the
long, familiar lines of the torso and arms and limbs
. . . the breasts . . . the head turned sideways
in death, blood running from a ruined eye . . .
spears protruding from several killing wounds:
Demmi's spear and three of his own.
Manaravak fell to his knees. He mewed and
sounded like a bereft animal as he touched the body,
drew out the stone that was embedded in the shattered,
jellied eye socket, and then took the furred and
lifeless body of the female wanawut into his arms
and held it close, rocking it, cooing to it as though it
were not a beast but a lifeless member of his own
family.
From the deep dark at the back of the cave, Demmi
watched him and could not bring herself to speak or to look
away. How long had she been sitting in the dark with
her back pressed to the cave wall? The fire that
she had kindled at her feet had gone out long ago.
Slowly, without a word, she rose shakily to her
feet. She stood in the darkness, watching
Manaravak, trying to remember if she had ever
felt so tired before. Not even the Great Mad River
had exhausted her so completely. This day
she had faced and overcome more dangerous
adversaries. She had stood alone against the
wanawut! She had wounded two, killed one, and
driven off the entire ravening pack of them. But what
she was feeling now was a weariness that had nothing to do with
physical exhaustion-it was the cold, numbing,
spirit-killing weariness that could only come to a devastated
soul.
Her eyes had long since grown used to the night.
Indeed, after the attack, she had actually welcomed
it, for she had known that if the wanawut tried to storm
the cave again, they would be silhouetted against the stars and
vulnerable to her spears. Maybe they knew it,
too. Perhaps this was why they had not come. Manaravak
had come instead! She had
known
that he would come. Over all the long, terror-ridden
hours in which she had lived in fear of the return of the
beasts, she had known that Manaravak would have second
thoughts and come back to her. She was his sister! He could
not possibly abandon her!
And yet now, as she watched him and heard the low
animal sounds that were pouring out of him, the night
seemed to be inside her. It was a night without stars.
It was a night without a moon. And in its
darkness she saw the expression of grief upon his
face and knew that his love for the dead thing that lay
limp and hideous within his embrace was absolute.
The hope that had welled so joyously within her only
moments ago, when she had recognized his
silhouette against the starlight, faded and twisted
back upon itself into the most profound disappointment she
had ever known.
Not once had he called her name or asked the night
and the silence of the cave if she was alive or dead!
Steadying herself against her stave, she walked forward,
crossed the cave, and stopped before him.
He looked up. "Demmi, did you do this . . .
and with my spears as well as your own?"
"I did."
"How? Look at her! She could be Mother."
Demmi felt as though something within her had died. He
was not speaking of Lonit but of the long-dead animal that
had raised him. The years that he had spent as an
animal living among animals had marked him forever.
She understood, and she pitied him. And yet she was
sickened and angered and hurt as she cried: "It could
have been
me,
Manaravak!"
"No, never. I would not have left you if I thought they
would hurt you. They would not! I would not! They-was He
stopped.
She was appalled by the look of horror that tore his
features and completely shattered his composure. His
face twisted with sadness, regret, and bewilderment.
Slowly he laid the body of the beast down, stared at
it long and hard, and then, as in a dream, he rose and
came to draw her into an embrace that had all of his
heart in it. "Forgive, me, Sister, if you can. I
nearly killed you."
With her heart wrenching and her spirit bleeding, there were
tears in her eyes as she put her arms around him and
held him close. "Not you. They. The wanawut."
"It is the same."
His statement shook her. She stood back from him.
"No. It is not the same!" She took his hands,
placed them on her belly, and pressed until he
felt the baby move within her.
"My life lies here, Manaravak-a
new
life, a continuing of the generations of the P. Dak's child.
And yet in a way it is your child, too-not because we have
been lovers but because you are my brother. The blood of
our family flows in us both, and it will flow
in this child when it is born . . .
if
it is born. I cannot stop you if your heart tells
you that you must turn your back upon your blood and walk
with beasts. But can you truly look at that dead
animal upon the floor of the cave and say that you are
one if its kind? It is
not
the beast that raised you, Brother! It would have killed and
eaten me had I not stood against it. And if I had
failed and you had returned to the cave alone to face
it and its pack, they would have killed you, too!"
She paused, expecting him to dispute her. He did
not. His silence heartened her. She went on in a
rush of words: "Do you not long for our people,
Manaravak? For our father and mother, for our brothers and
sisters, as I long for them and for my man and son? The
mammoth has led us into this good country. Despite the
presence of wanawut, luck has
been with us! Let us find our band and bring them here!
Together we could drive the wanawut from this good land and
force them to seek other hunting grounds as we claim
these for our own. Never have I seen a better or more
game-rich land than that which lies beyond the southern
ranges. As Torka has always assured,
the spirits smile upon those who walk in the shadow of
Life Giver. And if this is the truth, perhaps this is
why the great mammoth saved us-not for our sake, but for
our people's! Of what real worth are you and I beneath the
vast skin of the sky? We are but two; the People are
many.
It is because of them that we still live. I must go back
to them, Manaravak! I must tell them of this good land
where the great mammoth totem lives with our luck and
theirs! Come
with
me, Manaravak! You can learn to live as a man
among men. I
know
you can! And so I ask you now-I
beg
you-as I have stayed at your side when you were weak and
sick, stay at my side now. Be my strength and
my courage as I carry my baby-to-be back
across the drowned lands in search of our people. I must go
back to them, Manaravak! With you or without you, I
must go home!"
PART V
There was joy once more in the encampment of Torka.
Umak and Dak had come home with a sledge
laden with gifts: meat and fat and hides of glistening
white, feathers and tusks, and tales of hope and
wonder for all to hear.
After a gathering of the elders, the shaman sang and
danced, and the hearts of the men of the band were light as their
headman announced that tomorrow they would break camp and
travel north.
The women and children sang in anticipation of better
times, and the People gathered with the dogs around a high, hot
fire to feast upon steaks of bear and walrus meat as
they waited in great excitement for the formal dispersal
of the gifts that Umak and Dak had brought back from the
far north.
Old Grek sucked on pounded blubber through the ruin
of his teeth, and lana smiled to hear him say that although
not rancid enough for his tastes, the fat had an odd,
fishy taste that pleased him greatly.
When the fire was its hottest and the tales of the Land of
Many Waters were their boldest, Torka stopped the
good and boisterous talk and reminded his people that before any
gifts could be given he must ask the son of Simu
if Dak had not forgotten something.
Silence fell upon the encampment. Only the wind
whispered. Only the fire dared to spit sparks and
embers noisily into the sky. Grek went
wide-eyed as he elbowed Tankh meaningfully and
hard, which caused the boy to gag on the bear meat that
he had been about to swallow.
Annoyed with his son for his lack of decorum at such
a potentially auspicious moment, the old man
struck him forcefully upon the back. Tankh coughed,
and along with a wretching, choking explosion of sound,
bits and pieces of the meat went flying.
Everyone looked at Tankh with disapproval.
Then Dak spoke, his expression fixed and
unreadable.
"The son of Simu has not forgotten." He rose
and walked away.
Swan hung her head in shame and disappointment
while Lonit sucked in her breath with disbelief.
Umak appeared to be more shocked than anyone else
when his spear brother disappeared into his hut.
The lines in Torka's face cut deep as he
rose in anger. But before the stunned muttering of the People
could form into words, Dak emerged from his pit hut wearing
a necklace of bear claws interspersed with
blue-gray feathers and carrying the pelt of a great
white bear across his arms.
Swan looked up cautiously as he stopped before the
headman and held the bearskin outward on his
extended arms.
"For the new-woman Swan, bride gifts from one
who would be her man."
Even in the light of the fire the people saw Swan
blush. Lonit smiled with relief, and Torka
nodded in approval.
Everyone waited. Although not a single member of the band
doubted for a moment that she would accept Dak as her
man, a rousing shout of approval nevertheless went out
of every mouth-except Grek's-as she stood her ground
and nodded in approval of the gifts. With her head
held high, Swan allowed Dak to transfer the
heavy necklace of feathers and claws from his neck
to hers, and when she smiled, Larani, standing alone and
well away from the fire, smiled with her.
Later, while others still sang praise songs for the
presents that Dak and Umak had brought to them, Dak
took Swan's hand and led her to his pit hut. This
night, Kharn would sleep in the arms of Larani so
that his father and new mother might lie together undisturbed
upon the skin of the great white bear.
Although Dak lay beside Swan for the first time, he did
not join with her. Instead, as on all the other nights
when she had shared his hut without his permission, he
turned his back and pretended to sleep.
"I know your heart in this matter, Dak," she told
him quietly, "but I want you to know that it does not
matter to me if you still love Demmi or still want
her and no other woman. I love my sister, too.
There will always be room in this woman's heart and in her
pit hut for
the spirit of Demmi ... as long as I can hope that
someday there will be some small place in your heart for
me."
Her words touched him more than he could say. He
turned toward her and drew her close. "You
deserve better of life than the son of Simu,
Swan. I am-was
"You are all I have ever wanted," she interrupted.
"I would have shared you with Demmi. And I would not have
minded being second woman to her. I do not mind even
now when her spirit lies with us here upon this wondrous
white fur that you have brought to me ... if you will give
me only one more gift."
He frowned. "More? The skin, the necklace, the
meat, and the fat are not enough for you?"
"No. I want a better gift."
He would have shoved her away, but she held him by his
shoulders and looked him straight in his eyes. "Do not
let Demmi be
between
us! On this night when our people sing for us, give me
something to sing for, too. Here in the dark, while the feast
fire still burns outside, give me a bride
gift to burn here,
within,
for us. Love me, Dak. Love me only a little.
It is all that I will ever ask of you."
And so it was that when the feast fire died and Torka's
band dozed in its lingering warmth or walked arm in arm
back to their pit huts, Dak and Swan comlay
joined as man and woman for the first time. And for the first time
in all too many moons, Dak smiled in his sleep
and did not suffer tortured dreams of Demmi.
While Umak took off his shaman's raiment,
Honee settled the small, sleeping form of Li
onto the bed furs that mother and daughter so often shared.
Jhon hurried to take his father's sacred garments and
arrange them upon the back ledge of the hut with infinite
and reverential care, and Umak went to his own bed
skins and invited Naya to come to him.
She stared at him, and the blood drained from her face.
Apart from his body paint, he was naked. "My head
aches," she lied.
Honee looked at Naya with a worried
frown. "Your time of blood is over, Naya. Your
head should not ache. It has not ached all day."
"It aches now!" she insisted.
Jhon turned. His eyes were narrowed with dislike as
he
looked at Naya over his shoulder. "Your head always
aches when my father asks you to share his sleeping
skins!"
Naya glared at him. She was beginning to hate
Jhon. Then-she looked down and stroked the thick,
silken fur of the magnificent bearskin that Umak
had divided into thirds so that each female at his
fire circle would have a piece to sleep on.
Naya pouted. She would have preferred to keep the skin
all to herself. Her portion was not enough to enfold her
completely. In its entirety it had been almost as
large as the one that Dak had presented to Swan.
Envy turned Naya's pout into a scowl. What a
fine gift it had been for the new woman-especially
when, as far as Naya was concerned, Swan should have
received no new-woman gift at all. The daughter
of Torka had gone to Dak without his consent and against the
traditions of her people. And while Swan's
taboo-breaking behavior had been overlooked,
Naya had been severely punished, given
to Umak without choice or ceremony or gifts or
songs or feast fires- just given, as though she were
valueless. Irritated, she pushed the bearskin
away.
"Where are my berries?" she demanded of Umak.
"You said that you would bring me some!"
Jhon stared at her with disbelief. "My father has
brought you the best portion of the skin of a great white
bear and you ask him for berries?"
"It is
not
the best portion! It is only one of three, and
Honee's is bigger! Why should I not ask for my
berries? I put them in my medicines. I
am
a medicine woman, am I not? How can I make
medicine without them? Where
are
my berries?"
It was clear from Umak's expression and his tone of
voice that he was not happy with her. "If you want
berries, you are going to have to wait until the end of the
time of endless light when the fruits of summer are
ripe and ready for picking."
"I know only that you promised to bring me
berries!"
"I promised to see if I could find any of the
shrubs
upon which they grow."
"Well? Did you?"
"No, I did not."
She pouted again. She had not missed the resentment in
his voice. It occurred to her that she was being stubborn.
It did not seem important. She glared at
Umak. "If you were a great and powerful shaman like
Karana, my poor dead father,
or my grandfather Navahk, or a true spirit master like
old Umak, for whom you are named, you could
make
me berries!"
It was suddenly very quiet within the pit hut.
"Naya ..." Honee spoke with a lowered voice.
"Where are your manners? Go to your man when he asks
you to come to him and speak no more of berries!"
"Naya."
She blinked. Umak had spoken her name. She
looked at him as he spoke again.
"Come to me. Dak and I have been gone too long from
camp. I have missed you. I have missed all of you!
Rest beside me. I
am
Shaman. The least I can do is to try to find the
magic to drive away your headache."
Honee made a broad pretense of a yawn, then
asked her man if he would like her to extinguish the
tallow lamp.
Naya flinched.
Umak rose and moved toward Naya.
"Oh," she wailed. "I am going to be sick!"
He took a step toward her, and as she shrieked he
reached over and pinched out the flame that burned in the
centrally placed tallow lamp. Darkness filled the
hut.
Naya waited. Terrified, she closed her eyes.
She clenched her teeth and her thighs, and with her arms
folded across her chest, she pressed the little bone
talisman tightly within her fist. "Go away! Go
away! Go away!"
She began to cry. This was the night that Umak would not
be turned back! The nightmare would come true at
last, and all she feared would come to pass. She would be
like poor Snow Eater, locked to her mate,
hurting, crying to be free of him while everyone
laughed and mocked her.
But to her amazement and infinite relief,
Umak turned and went back to his own sleeping
furs. She heard him settling himself, exhaling with
disgust. "Go to sleep, Naya. You talk too much.
You are not the only one who is sick!"
The darkness thickened. The stars walked slowly across
the skin of the night, and as Lonit crept from her bed
skins to seek out her man she found him standing alone,
staring toward the east and the glistening wall of ice that
shimmered blue in the starlight.
. "The Mountains That Walk are beautiful, but they
are cold and desolate." She threaded her arm through
his and, sighing with contentment, leaned close and rested her
head
upon his shoulder. "I am glad that we are to turn
north and away from them at last."
"Are you?" There was sadness in his question, and regret.
Disturbed, she raised her head and looked at him.
"The closer we come to the eastern ranges, the more
impassable and lifeless they seem. Umak has found
good hunting to the north."
"But no sign of Life Giver."
"He has found much meat! I do not understand,
Torka. If you have second thoughts, you must call
another meeting of the elders."
"I must see to it that my people are no longer
hungry. I must lead them to meat. For now I will be
content to find my luck in that."
She put her head upon his shoulder again, and he put his
arm around her and held her close. "As I am
content," she told him. "Always and forever, for I have
found my luck in you."
Toward dawn a star fell out of the southern skies.
Only Larani was awake to see it. She sat
alone by the remains of the feast fire. The flames were
dead, but there was still warmth to be found in the embers.
She had watched Torka and Lonit disappear into their
pit hut. How long ago had that been? Half the
night ago, now. And how long had they stood together
beneath the sky, silent, arms entwined, lovers still after
how many years together?
Larani's comheart ached. There would never be a love
like that for her.
Never.
Bundled in her furs, she closed her eyes and
thought of what it must be like to be loved and to be mated.
A good thing,
she thought fervently, and for a moment she imagined the
sweetness of it and smiled until she felt the chill
of the dying night upon her face and was aware of the cold,
stiff puckering of her scars.
She shivered in revulsion and opened her eyes to stare
up at the vast, star-strewn skin of the night. Father
Above was up there somewhere-Father Above, who had sent his
lightning-bolt penis into the earth to give birth
to Daughter of the Sky. Did he know what that mating
had done to one young girl? Did he care?
Tomorrow the band would head north. But what did tomorrow
matter? It would only be another day, and after
that there would be another day and another, until the time of
endless light was upon the world. And then, slowly, the dark
days would return, and the endless cycle of dark and
light would begin again and again, until she was old and her
spirit walked the wind forever.
Her eyes remained fixed on the southern sky. The
falling star had left a trace of light in its
wake, like the imprint of a flame when it has burned
high and then subsided to leave a temporary shadow of
itself upon the night.
"Manaravak. Is that you, Manaravak? Are you
there, watching from the world beyond this world? Do you know that I
love you? Are you offended? Do not be. My love
is nothing. It matters no more than I."

Demmi trekked homeward. A sober and contrite
Manaravak journeyed at her side.
The land was wide. The sun grew higher in the sky every
day. At last they reached the Great Mad River and
stopped. In silence, they stared ahead.
"It is wider than I remembered."
Manaravak was moved by the despondency in
Demmi's voice. "We crossed before."
"In winter and on the back of a mammoth, and we were
still nearly drowned!"
"That is not the same as completely drowned. Besides,
there may be shallows ahead of us."
She laughed. There was no merriment in the sound.
He felt her mood and wished to ease it. "Soon
the time of endless light will come, and the sun will drink of this
big river. The level of the water will drop. We will
cross then. In the meantime we will follow this big
river back to the place of our people's last encampment
. . . and maybe, if we are lucky, the mammoth
will see us longing to be on the other side and come
to help us once again!"
Demmi laughed again, and there was no more merriment in the
sound than before. For many days and nights
they walked along the course of the Great Mad
River. Although travel was tedious and slow, there was
neither sign nor sound of the wanawut, and so they took
their time, pausing to hunt for fresh meat and
to revel in the increasing warmth and astounding beauty of the
land as they sang praises to the sun and to the new
Moon of Green Grass Growing.
A new moon was rising over the Land of Many
Waters when the people of Torka's band made camp on
high ground above the Lake of Watered Blood.
All the omens were good.
Only Torka stood back and with grim foreboding
apraised
the hunting grounds to which he had consented to lead his people.
He hated the look of this place. He despised
its smell. Every animal except the white bears
revolted him, and in the bears he saw only
potential danger-there were too many of them. With the
exception of the cubs, each one was bigger and whiter and
more menacing than Three Paws had ever been. How
could Umak and Dak not have seen the hazard in this? He
was puzzled and worried. Umak was Shaman, but what
had happened to his common sense?
Nothing good can come to my people in this place,
thought Torka. But he kept his thoughts to himself. His people
were hungry. They must eat. He must encourage them
to take meat and hides until winter rations were
assured. By then the pups would be large and strong enough
to pull fully loaded sledges. By then
lana's baby would be born, as would the child of Summer
Moon. The women would be ready to travel back to the
tundral steppelands, where the luck of the band would be
found in the shadow of Life Giver and where the spirits of
their ancestors walked the wind forever in the face of the
rising sun!
In the days that followed, Torka led the men of his band
to hunt, and the women worked hides and set up bone
frames upon which to dry the meat of seals and walruses
and of many a fine, fat, thick-skinned fish. The
cloud cover finally lifted over the Lake of
Watered Blood. Under the watchful eyes of all,
with Torka's assistance, the children gathered seabird
eggs and made a game of trying to ride the pups as
they taught them not to bolt against the traces of a
heavily loaded sledge.
"If I did not know better, I would think that you were
readying to leave this camp!" Umak teased his father.
Torka was not amused. "And if I did not know
better, I would think that you were still a shaman."
Naya could not say what had made her feel so much
better. Perhaps it was something in the air. The smell of
salt in the wind heightened her senses and cleared her
head, and the rich, oily taste of fish and walrus
drove away the recurring images of her
red berries. Even Jhon was more agreeable now that
he was spending most of his time hunting with the men of the band,
Sayanah, and the other boys. Simu was still surly,
but killing seemed to curb his nastiness, although the sight
of Dak and Swan walking openly together, holding
hands and kissing, sometimes made him growl.
"I never thought I'd see the day when Dak would be so
happy!" Umak said to Naya as he came to stand beside
her. She knelt opposite Honee over a
sealskin that the two of them were fleshing.
"It is good to see Dak smiling again," she replied
in earnest.
"A good and loving woman can do that for a man."
The subtle undercurrent of dissatisfaction in his
voice made Naya uneasy.
"Do I not make you smile, Umak?" asked
Honee in a light and teasing tone.
He looked at her thoughtfully. "Always, dear one.
But Naya could do more."
Honee suddenly and uncharacteristically exploded at
Umak. "Shame! Our little Naya is trying as
hard as she can! Who would have believed her capable of
such usefulness when you first dragged her, lacking and
screaming, to our fire circle? Shame, I say,
whenever I think of that! Poor child! A good,
hardworking woman has my little band sister Naya
turned out to be-as good and hardworking as your sister
Swan! But for Naya there have been no feast fires
or new-woman gifts, or even looks of
approval from the headman! Shame, I say!
Shame! What woman could do more . . . when she has
been so badly used!"
Naya was so taken aback by Honee's outburst that
she could not speak or look at Umak.
He was silent. "Is that what turns you against me,
Naya? The way in which you were given?"
Naya stared into her lap. "I ... no ... It is
not that."
He did not believe her. "I will talk to Torka.
You are right, Honee. Time has passed. Naya
has been an obedient woman to me ... in all
ways but one. But perhaps that will change now. Yes.
We will see. We will soon see."
"No!" Torka was adamant. "No feast fire!
No songs! Because of Naya, Manaravak and
Demmi are dead, and for all I know, Simu is right
when he says that Naya is to blame for the maiming of
Larani and the death of Eneela and Nantu as well!
I took pity on the girl for your sake, Umak,
and for old Grek and for the good of the band! I will not
do it again. If you want to give her gifts because she
pleases you, do so. She is yours to do with as you will. That
is enough! Do not ask more of me. Simu still believes
that she is bad luck. He points to her flat
belly and says that she will bear no life and so
deserves no life among us. Prove him wrong,
Umak, and you will make us both happy men. Put a
baby in her belly. Make sons on her and
assure the future of the P. But if you are still the
shaman you once were, look into my heart and know this:
Where Naya is concerned there can be neither sympathy
nor mercy."
The full glory of the time of light returned to the
tundra. As Demmi and Manaravak continued
to seek their people, the once drowned and devastated land
burst into bloom around them.
"Like you!" said Manaravak, smiling as he patted
Demmi's expanding belly. "Dak will smile to see
you so!"
She shook her head as she scanned the distances
ahead. "I may have this baby at my breast by the time
we find our people . . .
if we
ever find them."
"We will find them, my sister. The land is
big, and the river is long, but we
will
find them."
Demmi paused to look back. "Before the wanawut
find us?"
"We have seen or heard no sign of them."
"In my dreams I see them." She shuddered. "Will
our people remember us, Manaravak? Will Dak be
glad to see me or even care about this child?"
He frowned. "Of course they will remember us.
Naya has my talisman. Helping Spirit will not
let her forget me."
Umak was angry with Torka, Honee, Jhon, and
Naya. And he was furious with himself. Was he not the
headman's
eldest son? Was he not the grandson of a spirit master,
and a shaman himself? Had he not led his people to this amazing
land of endless meat?
fes!
But still Naya would not lie with him! And Honee
continued to huff at him and told him angrily that he
was behaving shamefully when he pressed the
granddaughter of Grek to perform the most basic and-to
any other woman-pleasurable of duties!
Umak wanted to make love to Naya . .
. not rape her. Rape was too easy. Besides, according
to Naya, Manaravak had already done that, and it was for
this reason the girl feared the very thing that Umak wanted
most of her . . . besides the commitment of her affection.
Even though he had tried to explain all this
to Torka, the headman would not reconsider a
decision that Simu had coerced him into making in the first
place. Umak's temper boiled to think of it. If
he
could forgive Naya her transgressions, why could
Torka not do the same? She had been punished and
humiliated. Yes, she had been a thoughtless,
foolish young woman who had inadvertently led a good
man to rape, but the tragedy that had resulted had not
been intended. Naya had suffered over it and had
learned from it. Now all she wanted-aside from a
handful of her red berries- was to be accepted by her people
once again, to be accorded the same respect that was
given to every other new woman when she went to her
man's fire circle.
Was it asking too much of Torka to allow his son-and the
shaman of the band-to give Naya her new-woman
celebration? Umak's knuckles went white with
frustration as his hand closed upon the haft of his spear.
No.
It was not asking too much.
A memory flared. In his mind's eye, he saw
Naya and Manaravak rutting like wolves, and
Naya screaming in ecstasy-no vanquished virgin,
but a well-broken-in woman begging for more.
Umak's anger focused inward. Manaravak was
dead and gone. In the long, bitter, and tormented days
and nights that had passed since his disappearance,
Umak had come to realize that jealousy had twisted his
vision. He had not witnessed a passionate mating;
he had witnessed his brother's rape of the woman he,
Umak, loved. If he still had doubts about that,
surely Naya's irrational terror of coupling
proved the truth.
He drew in a deep and steadying breath.
Manaravak was dead. Naya was his woman now.
Torka might forbid her the joy of a new-woman's
celebration of honor, but he had not forbidden his son
to bring her gifts. Now that Umak thought about it,
Naya was right to complain about receiving only a portion
of a bearskin. He owed her better than that.
Now, he stared out of camp, to where the great white
bears had last been seen fishing. His hand tightened
on his spear. He would bring Naya a new-woman
gift that would make her proud. And when she
smiled at him in gratitude, he would take her
down upon it, and although she might weep and cry at
first, he would have her on it, and he would make certain
that she would have no cause for tears . . . and no
reason to speak the name of Manaravak or to ask him
for help ever again!
It was never completely dark now. From their little camp
above the river, Demmi and Manaravak heard
mammoth trumpeting in the thin blue gauze of
night, and in the full light of the Arctic day, the
siblings saw the herd of shaggy cows and calves
browsing in the foothills not far away.
"A good sign!" proclaimed Manaravak. "And
look! There is Life Giver! I think that maybe
he and his mammoth band follow us, to make sure we
are safe."
Demmi could find no cause to argue with him.
For the first time the land seemed familiar. The river was
growing wider and shallowing noticeably. Demmi
felt her senses quicken. Perhaps they would find a
place to cross before winter.
A herd of horses ultimately showed them the
way-fine, tawny, shaggy horses with striped
backs and black manes and tails and eyes afire
with sunlight. Led by a mare with a belly as
spotted as a fawn's, they raced along the river's
edge in an explosion of power, ferocious neighing, and
flying water that turned into fragmented rainbows as it
caught the light of the sun, and then plunged across.
They galloped on until, suddenly in deeper
water, they lost their footing briefly and
were swept downstream. After swimming strongly, they
regained their footing and disappeared into the green grass
and flaming stands of fireweed that grew along the far
shore.
"They have found a way across!" Manaravak let off
a series of triumphant hoots. Entranced by the
sight of so much power and beauty and meat on the hoof,
he raced after them.
Demmi called him back. "Manaravak, wait!
We cannot follow them!"
"Why not?"
His question seemed absurd. "Because we are not
horses!" she replied.
Ignoring her, he raced headlong into the shallows.
He kept on running until, like the horses before
him, he plunged into deep water and was swept
downstream.
She cried out in fear for his life. Racing along the
shore in a vain attempt to keep up with
him, she saw that his arms were up and waving as he
screeched and yipped with joy.
With her heart in her throat, she saw that he still had
his spears and that the current was carrying him safely
across to the far shore. Once on dry ground, he
waved again and shook himself in the way of a wet dog.
"It is good!" he called across to her. "Come!"
She hesitated only for a moment. The water was
cold. The crossing was frightening at first, and then
exhilarating.
He was waiting for her on the far shore with outstretched
arms, beaming and dripping like a giddy child. She stopped
before him and dropped him where he stood with a hard right
to his jaw.
He stared up at her, testing his jawbone with careful
fingers. It made a cracking noise beneath his questing
fingertips.
She knelt down. "I am not a horse,
Manaravak! I am a pregnant woman who is
not feeling as strong as she once did. I do not
want to lose this baby, Manaravak. And I do not
want to lose you."
Her words had their intended effect. He was sobered.
His hand moved from his jaw to her face. "You will not
lose me. Together Demmi and Manaravak
must take Dak's new baby home!"
"Umak, wait!"
Umak heard Dak's imperative call, but he
paid no heed to it. At his side Companion was taking
one slow, measured
step at a time-head down, tail tucked, snout out
and sniffing at the wind.
A lone bear had come down to the shore to feast upon the
carcass of a seal that lay stinking in the wind. It was a
big bear and still too far away for Umak to tell if
it was
the
bear that he wanted for Naya-white overall, with no
serious scars to mar the pelt. From here it looked very
promising indeed!
He had three of his best spears with him. His spear
hurler would allow him to increase the power and range of
his thrust. He walked toward the animal very slowly,
taking full advantage of the angle of the sun and the
fact that he was downwind of the creature. He could
see its ears twitching and was close enough now to see that
the pelt of the animal was of good quality, not snow
white but cream, with only the softest washes of
yellow at the belly, elbows, and the tips of the ears,
like dawn sunlight on new snow.
He wanted this bear for Naya. He could feel her
eyes on his back-hers and the eyes of everyone in the
band! Let them watch! Let them see what he could
do! Let Torka see just how much Umak was willing
to risk in order to make his new woman smile!
"Hold now and steady, old friend," he commanded the dog
in a whisper. "You and I have faced this kind of death
before and come away alive. Let us do this right,
Companion, and let us do it now!"
There was no missing the challenge in Umak's raging
cry as he ran forward and hurled first one spear, and
then another and another at the bear. But the challenge
was not only to the animal; Torka knew that the
challenge was also for him. It had to do with the heated words
they had recently exchanged about Naya. Umak's
aggression was a deliberate and direct assault
on the headman's judgment against her.
He was not angry; he was proud to have such a son.
When the other men and boys made to run to Umak's
assistance, Torka ordered them back. This kill
would be Umak's alone. He had the right to it, and if
he made it, Torka's heart would sing for him.
Nevertheless, Torka had his weapons ready and
gestured the others into defensive positions. If
Umak failed to make his kill and the bear
charged past the hunters into the hastily assembled
members of the band, someone was likely to be hurt,
perhaps even killed. And all because the granddaughter
of Grek still twisted the heart of his son and made it
bleed for her. The realization darkened his spirit.
Naya was not even there to appreciate her man's
valor; she was in the hut of blood with lana, whose
baby was about to be born.
A terrible cold expanded within Grek and prickled
at the backs of his hands, along his shoulders, and up
his neck into his scalp. He wished that his teeth would
stop hurting. The pain was in his jaw now. It throbbed
at his temples. It pulsed deep inside his ears.
And then it was gone completely; Lonit had come out
of the hut of blood to raise a shout of joy.
He wheeled around and saw the woman of the headman
standing tall and serene with Honee, Larani, Swan,
and Naya peering happily from the hut behind her.
"Come forth, Grek!" cried Lonit.
Grek ran like a youth, oblivious to his pain and
to the protests of every twisted, creaking, groaning, and
hurting bone in his old body.
Lonit held a square of white caribou skin in
her outstretched hands. He could see that the skin lay
over a mound that was supported at each end
by her upturned palms. The mound moved, and the
headman's woman smiled as Grek paused before
her. Although he was breathless, his heart sang.
Lonit's face was radiant. "lana has made
a male child for Old Lion," she announced loudly
enough so that all might share the joy and pride. "lana
has asked Lonit to bring this male child to Grek.
lana has asked if Grek will accept this child of the
People?"
Grek drew back the caribou skin and looked at his
son. The baby was small and pale but perfect. His
little hands were clenched into fists, and his tiny feet
kicked, and as Grek took the squirming infant
into his big, steady hands and held him high for all
to see, the baby's tiny penis erected and a stream of
hot, steaming urine fountained high and hit Grek in
the face. He laughed. Everyone laughed. No omen
could have been better!
"The son of Grek
livesl"
he announced to all. "Woman of Torka, tell
lana that Old Lion accepts this son and rejoices in
this
third
hunter that she has made for this "old"
man!"
He had watched the headman's son kill the huge
white bear, then turned to see Lonit carry the
new boy forward.
Perhaps these happinesses would finally set Simu's
mind to rest about Naya's being a bad-luck bringer.
When Grek placed the infant back into Lonit's
hands so that she might bring it to its mother's waiting
breast, the headman's woman spoke the sweetest
words of all:
"You must give special thanks to Naya. This little
one was backward inside his mother. It was Naya who
turned him. who remembered Demmi's example
with the pups and, because her arm is as slender as a child's,
reached in to coax him out. And so now, because of Naya,
you have another son, and the band will have a new hunter, and the
people of Torka have good cause to smile upon the
granddaughter of Grek once again!"
Under the ever-lengthening sun, Manaravak and Demmi
continued to follow the mammoth eastward away from the
Great Mad River. On an afternoon in which high
clouds created rainbow-colored halos around the
sun, they picked up the trail of the band. It was not
long before they were able to tell by the number of
footprints that a woman was missing.
"Naya!" Manaravak, bereft, fell to all
fours, his nose to the earth like a scenting beast as he
repeatedly whispered her name.
"No!" Demmi frowned, disgusted. "Get up,
Brother! It is Eneela who is missing, not
Naya. I told you: On the night that we were
swept away, I saw her lying dead upon the ice."
He rose, his face alight with infinite relief.
"You are sure?"
She was suddenly fiercely angry with him. "A
woman of the People is dead, I say! Why do you
smile?"
He was instantly contrite. "I am not glad for her
death, Demmi. I am only glad that Naya is
not dead, too."
"You must forget her, Manaravak. By now she is
probably growing big with Umak's child."
"She accepted my talisman. She should have been
mine."
"Manaravak, have you forgotten why she was given
to Umak? Have you forgotten why you ran off into the
storm? If Naya kept your talisman, she is
indeed foolish!" Her face worked against anger.
"Whatever magic may have been between you is over forever!
When we return to our people, you will have no right
to speak to Naya or even look directly into her
face without Umak's consent."
Manaravak stared at his feet. It was obvious that
he
found her words unpalatable, yet he said quietly,
"I have shamed him once. I do not wish to do so again."
For five days Naya would not leave lana's side
in the hut of blood as the other women came and went
with food and water and changes of bedding for the new mother
and child. For five days Naya did not see the sun
except when she left the hut to relieve herself and
to breathe in the pungent smell of the sea while she
thanked the forces of Creation for having allowed her
to be the one to save the life of lana and her
baby-and for having kept Umak from putting a baby in
her belly and subjecting her to the bloodied horror
of a birth such as lana had barely survived. She
shivered with dread every time she thought of it. Naya
cleaned and cooked and cared for the baby. She fussed and
smoothed bedding and plumped backrests. She told
stories and sang songs of such sweetness that she
gave lana cause to regret every harsh word that she had
ever spoken . . . and for five nights, although she fought
against sleep, she lost the battle and fell victim
to her recurring nightmare. She woke
sweated and dry mouthed and barely able to stifle her
screams.
At dawn on the morning of the sixth day, Umak
broke the spears and shattered the stone spearheads that
had ended the white bear's life. With the remains of the
projectile points in his bare hands-and all the
members of the band following except Naya, lana,
and the baby-he went naked from camp to the place where
he had killed the animal. He shouted away
ravens and carrion-eating birds that were still feeding upon
the skull of the great carnivore that now lay brainless
and staring at the sky out of empty eye sockets.
Umak stood facing the rising sun. With arms
upraised, he spoke to honor the life of the bear,
then threw the shattered spearheads in all directions
and asked the forces of Creation to release the bear's
spirit to join its ancestors.
This done, without another word, he walked back to the
encampment and strode to the hut of blood.
"Come!" he called. "lana, woman of Grek, the
spirit of the great white bear has gone to walk with its
ancestors. It is time for you to bring the new son of
Old Lion into the light of day!"
She came, blinking proudly, with her tiny boy in
her arms, and her body clothed in new
garments that the women and girls had sewn for her.
Grek beamed. His head was held high, and his
grizzled hair was combed for a change. With Tankh,
Chuk, and Yona at his side, his expression was one
of love and pride.
A soft, gentle wind was rising with the new day. All
things seemed to Torka at equilibrium with the P.
He and Lonit stood close. Dak and Swan
held hands. Larani smiled, holding Kharn, and
did not flinch when the boy touched her scars; they
fascinated him. Even Simu was not glowering as he
stood with Summer Moon. Soon he, too, might
have a new son.
Umak remained standing before the hut of blood.
"Naya!" he called. "Woman of Umak, come
forth and receive this gift of honor, not only from your man
but from the shaman, who would praise the healing ways of
one who has brought forth new life from another!"
A murmuring of appreciation rippled through the band.
Torka nodded in approval. Not even Simu could
possibly argue against Naya's being rewarded now.
The girl had proved her worth and deserved her
moment of recognition.
"Naya! Come out, my Naya!" Umak called
again.
But the moments passed, and only silence came from the
hut of blood until, at last, Umak called for
his woman to come out again and a single word rang through the
encampment.
"No!"
lana reentered the hut of blood with her newborn
son in her arms and worry on her face. "Naya,
you must come out!"
The granddaughter of Grek sat with her knees
drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped about her
knees. "I have a headache."
"Umak is Shaman. He will rid you of your
headache."
"No. He will make it worse. Just looking at him
makes it worse!"
"What are you saying? Umak is no stranger to you.
He has risked his life to kill the bear. This is
a great honor."
"I never asked him to kill it," Naya
responded. "I do not want his gift! Tell him
to give it to Honee! She is fat! She needs a
whole bearskin for herself!"
lana's mouth tightened over her teeth. "Honee
has been as a mother to you since you came to the fire
circle of Umak. That is no way
to talk about her!" She stopped as insight flared.
Honee
had
been behaving toward Naya as a mother.
It was beginning to make sense to lana now. "Naya,
you and Umak
have
joined as man and woman, haven't you?"
The girl's silence was answer enough.
lana went to Naya and knelt beside her. "This cannot
be. You must go to him. You must accept his gift. You
must accept
him backslash
He loves you, Naya. You must not shame him before the
band. If not for his sake, for your own!"
Naya's eyes were enormous. Even in the gloom
of the hut, her face was deathly white. "He will
hurt me! He will make me bleed! He will fill
me and fill me, and I will explode and die! Like in
the dream! Like you almost died, with your baby stuck
inside you! I do not want to die, lana! I do not
want him inside me!"
As lana held her newborn in the curl of one
arm, she encircled Naya in the other, listening with
revulsion and pity as the girl slowly told
her about the nightmare-of the horror and blood, of death
and endless pain.
"Dream or no dream, Naya, you cannot avoid
Umak forever," lana said gently.
"Why not? Larani has not been forced to take a
man!"
"Only because Torka has a gentle heart."
Naya scowled. "Not toward me he hasn't!"
"Were it not for Torka, you would not be here talking
to me now. And as for your fear of mating and childbirth,
your nightmare is only that, Naya. Look at
me: I have been with many men in my time-some have been
cruel and have brought me pain, while others, like
Grek, have been tender and caring. I have given birth
to many children. As with the men who have lain with me, some births
have been better than others. But I have never
exploded, except in passion . . . and despite
the pain and blood of childbirth, I have lived a very
long time!" She looked down lovingly at the infant
as it suckled fitfully at her heated breast.
"Long enough to give life to this little one. It will make
Grek feel strong and young again."
"And what of you?" Naya asked irritably.
"Has this baby made you feel strong and young again?
You look sick to me, lana! And your
milk smells odd-no doubt from your fever! This
baby would have killed you had I not been able to turn it
and guide it out!"
lana sighed and shook her head. "Something will kill us
all sooner or later, Naya. That is the one thing
in our lives that is certain."
When the horses broke through tall stands of budding
fireweed, Manaravak took after them.
Briefly-so briefly that the thought was gone before he was
even half aware of it- he thought of Larani: of
long, lean limbs and fine, firm breasts, of hair
as black and shining as the thick bristling mane of a
healthy mare. Larani, like the fireweed, was a
wonder to behold, despite her scars ... or because
of them?
He sent his spear flying after the horses. It was
only a matter of time before one of the striped mares
fell back. Wheezing, she circled and fought for
life and breath, only to go to her knees several times
before he was able to wade across a narrow stream and walk
right up to her.
He drew his skinning dagger and slit her throat.
She died quietly, almost gratefully, while he
knelt beside her, stroking her flank and sucking
blood from an open vein as he thanked her
for her life.
When the vein collapsed, he leaned back,
absently wiping blood from his face with the backs of his
fingers. He looked around and recognized the old,
stony hills and gravel-bottomed little stream along
which he and Naya had once frolicked like children . . .
and then not like children at all. A strange mix of
emotions swept through him: happiness, sadness,
nostalgia, and loss. He was actually glad when
Demmi came across the stream and angrily kicked
water at him.
"What is the matter with you? What will we do with so much
meat? We are traveling, Manaravak, not settling
into a winter camp."
Manaravak eyed the dead horse thoughtfully. "We
have been traveling long. We have hunted little and eaten
less. I am hungry. I could eat this horse
myself! Besides, my sister looks tired. Rest your
muscles and bones for a few days, eat. Maybe
then Demmi will not be as quick to snap as a badger being
taken from a snare!"
Demmi knew that he was worried about her, and she
appreciated his concern. Although she did not want
to admit
to being tired, she knew he was right. They had
been living off the light, almost bloodless meat of
ptarmigan and squirrels. The rich, sweet meat
of the horse was welcome.
"All right, but we will not stay in this place too
long," she said.
He shrugged and looked at her through lowered lids.
"There has been neither sign nor sound of wanawut,
Demmi."
She shivered at the hated name. "No. Still ... we
will not linger here any longer than necessary to appease the
life spirit of your kill and the traditions of our
ancestors."
Together they feasted upon the eyes, tongue, and liver before
Demmi lay down to sleep.
When she awoke, Manaravak was busy butchering the
mare's carcass.
"A fine hide this horse has," he said, smoothing
the skin appreciatively with his palms. It was a
soft, tawny brown, with pale, smoky-looking
black stripes running through it. "I will flesh this
hide and bring it to Umak, to show him that I would be his
brother once more!"
The words soothed Demmi. She closed her eyes and
went back to sleep, only to dream of Naya
walking sulkily across the tundra in a
horsehide dress. With a start, she was awake again,
staring ahead at Manaravak as he busied himself
scraping the flesh from the skin. "Naya had a dress
of horsehide," she reminded him.
He kept on working. "No, coltskin. It was
ruined by Daughter of the Sky. With this fine, good hide
she can make another. She will smile at this man when
she sees it, I think."
Demmi propped herself onto an elbow.
"Manaravak! You said the hide was for Umak!"
He looked at her with a spark of humor in his
eyes. "For Umak, yes! But if Naya smiles
at this hide that I will give to my brother, Umak will
give it to her. Then Manaravak will smile, too!"
She shook her head with open disapproval. "You have
lived with wanawut, and you have lived with men,
Manaravak. Why, then, are you thinking like a fox?"
Demmi and Manaravak slept the sleep of the
exhausted and the well fed. Sometime after dawn, the wind
carried sounds that should have roused their sense of danger,
but it was the nickering of a colt that finally awakened them.
To their mutual distress, they watched the confused,
frightened
adolescent nuzzling the mutilated remains of its
mother. Demmi slowly reached for her spear.
Manaravak stayed her hand. "What are you doing?"
"It will starve and become prey for wolves if we
don't kill it."
"Better wolves than us. Wolves will be
hungry. We have enough meat. Besides, it looks to be
well past the age of suckling. The herd will return
for it." He cocked his head and appraised the colt.
Memories made him smile. "When I was a
boy, I once rode a caribou. Did I ever
tell you about that, Demmi? It was long ago, when I
was a wanawut."
She made a face of revulsion. "You were never a
wanawut!"
"I was, long ago."
"And why would a wanawut ride a caribou?"
"To kill it! To leap upon its back as the lion
leaps. I have never forgotten the way it felt.
To feel the caribou between my thighs, warm, moving,
carrying me forward. To sit so high and hold tight
to an antler and race into the wind . . . imagine
riding on the back of a horse!"
"Impossible!"
"No! If men can walk with dogs and train them
to carry loads, why could men not ride horses or
train them to carry loads, too? Horses
could carry more!"
The colt skittered off. Manaravak stared after it.
It would not be a good thing to kill the colt. Demmi
always was too fast to reach for her weapons. She should not
have raised her staves to the wanawut in the cave. Just
as poor Nantu's scream of terror had cost him
his head, it was Demmi's irrational fear of the
wanawut that had provoked their attack.
He ground his teeth. By now they would be finished
mourning their slain female and would be hunting again. But
would they be hunting beast or man, food or
vengeance? He knew the answer. The wanawut had
long and unforgiving memories. He would not mention this
to Demmi. And he resolved not to tell her that she was
right to believe that the wanawut might be following.
"Stand aside!" demanded Umak.
"I tell you, Umak," Swan said, blocking her
brother's passage into die hut of blood as
nearly everyone in die band gathered to watch. "Naya
is still not feeling well enough to come out."
"Then I will go in and get her!" the shaman threatened.
"She's been in there for three days!"
Honee gasped. "No man may enter the hut of
blood! It has always been forbidden!"
Simu growled, "Honee is right. It
has been said among my people that when a man enters the
hut of blood, the woman spirits that live inside
attack him. They take hold of his man sacks and
squeeze them until they shrivel. They grab his
man bone and suck the juice right out of it, then they
break it and twist it so that it remains limp forever!
I would not go in there if I were you, Umak. And most
certainly I would not go in for
her."
"One time too many has Old Lion heard Simu
speak against Little Girl! Now I will-was
"Be still, Grek." Torka's voice framed a
clear warning. "I am headman. I will deal with this."
"No need, Father," Umak said. "If Simu
quakes in fear of woman spirits, we must be
sympathetic. As he keeps reminding us, the ways
of his ancestors are different from ours. As for me,
I have no fear of woman spirits. If Naya is so
sick that she cannot come to me, then I will go to her."
Lonit's voice, soft and caring, quivered a little with
dread: "Wait, my son. There is no need for
risk! And there is no need for hostility between you and
Simu. lana has assured us all that in a day or
so Naya will be well again. It is just that without a
full supply of her healing leaves and
roots and berries, she is at a disadvantage
to offer cures to any of us, including herself."
"Don't tell me. ..." Umak addressed his mother
in a tone acidic with sarcasm. "My Naya has
a
headache?"
"Why, yes," replied Lonit, surprised.
"She does."
With a snarl the shaman stalked forward to the small hut
and swept the door skin aside. Making a small
compromise lest he offend the traditions of Simu,
he stood poised in the entranceway, looking at
Naya.
"Well, I see that Medicine Woman is still
alive," he said with unmistakable irritation. "How
is your headache . . . after all these many days?"
Umak did not miss the fact that lana had to force
Naya to get to her feet.
"Go to him!" the woman hissed, and for a moment Umak
was taken aback by lana's pallor and by the
gray-blue shadows beneath her eyes.
He stared at her with concern. "Your fever is still with
you."
"It will pass." She smiled to assuage his worry.
"Do not look so concerned, Shaman. It is
not as though this were the first infant that ever came out of my
body! Here, take Naya away. She has given
too much of herself to me. It is time for her to do the
same for you."
His face flushed red with shame. How could Naya have
told the woman of Grek that he had yet to take
her? What must lana think of him! What would everyone
in the band think of him! What would Simu have to say if
he knew?
Suddenly furious, he exhaled a wordless curse
at Naya. "Come!" he demanded with a shout, and as
lana gently shoved the girl forward he took her
roughly by the hand.
"Umak ..." lana's tone was soft, entreating.
"Ask Naya to tell you of her dream."
"Dream?" He could not think through his anger. "I am
Shaman! In the hut of Umak, it is I who have the
dreams!"
Without giving her a chance to comb her hair, straighten
her garments, or put on her moccasins, he jerked
Naya into the light of day.
She did not speak. She walked with her head down,
her hair falling in unplaited disarray over her
back to below her hips, and her bare feet scuffing
dejectedly.
The people of the band had the courtesy to look away.
Only Grek stared a moment too long, frowning and
mumbling to himself with worry.
Umak lengthened his stride. When Naya balked,
he pulled her on, and in a moment he was escorting
her small, rigid figure inside.
Across the hide-covered floor was the skin of the great
white bear.
She stared at it, head down, her hands folded at
her throat. Even in the dull shadows of the unlighted
interior, the white fur glistened like snow with the
radiance of dawn sheening upon it.
They were alone in the hut. Honee had arranged to be
away with the children. She had aired the bed furs and laid
the bearskin over them, hair-side up.
Umak stood close at Naya's back and placed
his hands lightly upon her shoulders. "Behold
Umak's gift for his new woman! Umak has
killed this great white bear so that Naya might take
pleasure in its life . . . and so that Umak and
Naya might take pleasure on it together. It has
been waiting for you, Naya, as has
this."
He turned her around with one strong hand, and with one
deft movement of the other, he freed his
second gift and displayed it proudly. He stood
tall and bold. He was big and growing bigger.
Her eyes went wide. Her expression was fearful,
incredulous, her face unnaturally pale amid the
wild black fall of her hair. It occurred
to Umak that he had rarely seen her hair
unplaited. Somehow it was more beautiful unadorned.
He touched it. His fingers entwined themselves in it, combed
downward to where the strands ended upon her thighs.
"The time has come for you to stop fearing me, Naya.
I am a man. I have the needs of a man. You are
my woman. I
will
have you.
Now!"
His hands took hers, drew them forward, and placed
them around his organ. He swelled with pleasure and
moved for her until her back went as straight as a
spear shaft. Her fingers stiffened and practically
curled backward to her wrists to be away from him.
Her eyes rolled up, and then she collapsed onto
the bearskin in a dead faint.
Anger flared within Umak, then concern. He knelt
beside her. "Naya! I did not mean to frighten you! You
must know that I would never hurt you!"
Her breathing was fast and shallow. He brushed aside
her hair and loosed the shoulder ties that secured her
dress. In a moment she was naked. He caught his
breath at so much beauty, and then he snarled, for there,
lying between her breasts, was Manaravak's talisman,
Manaravak's helping spirit! In a sudden fury he
snatched it into his fist and ripped the thong from her
neck. He knew that he had hurt her. He did
not care.
She cried out as pain roused consciousness. Her eyes
were wide with terror as he held the talisman before
her face.
"Is this why your thighs are closed to me and your head
aches whenever I come near? Because you wait for him?
He is
dead,
Naya! You are
my
woman now.
Mine!
And yet you wear his talisman! It was not rape, was
it? No! I see that now, as I
did
see it then. The two of you together, behind my back-and not
only once I'd wager. And you loving it
every time, and wanting it, like
this!"
He hurled the talisman and broken thong across the
hut. All feelings of compassion gone, he smothered
her scream with a kiss that cut her mouth. He tasted
blood and liked it. Engorged with rage and lust, he
was huge now, larger than he had ever been or ever
thought he could be. Her hands
beat at his shoulders. He felt the sting of her
scratches. She arched upward in a vain attempt
to free herself of him. He caught her wrists and
pressed them down and kept on kissing her until
she could not breathe. He felt her yielding, sobbing,
losing strength as he forced her wide, positioned
himself, and then rammed deep and hard, even though he
knew that she was not ready to accept him. He wanted
to hurt her, to make her pay for his shame, for all the
times that she had professed fear of him when, in
fact, she was rejecting him out of desire for his
brother.
He knew he was raping her. She deserved no more from
him. He thrust once, twice. She was very small,
very tight for one who had opened herself to his brother
only the forces of Creation knew how many times! He
was buried deep, still swelling, throbbing,
filling every portion of her until release
came-wrenching him to his very spirit, burning, driving him
deeper and deeper until he collapsed upon her .
. . still ejaculating and, impossibly, still swelling
. . . locked tightly within her as though, somehow, her
body had melded to his organ and would not-or could
not-release him.
The nightmare! For Naya it was the nightmare come
true-the pain, the horror of her body being twisted,
pulled, sundered, and smashed and filled until she could
no longer breathe. And all the time the monster was at
her, the doll, the hideous faceless doll, hurting
her, becoming one with her.
And now, still joined to her, he slept. She wept at
the betrayal of it.
With his arms locked tightly around her, she cried
herself to sleep.
A golden aurora was pulsing against the thin caul of the
early-summer night when Umak was at last awakened
by Naya's moaning.
Reason and regret walked his mind now . . . and more
shame than he had ever felt from her denial of him.
He withdrew from her slowly, knowing from her reaction that
he had hurt her badly even before he caught the
scent of blood on the bearskin beneath him.
He drew her close. Even if she had lain
willingly with Manaravak, she had not deserved this from
him. "Forgive me, Naya," he whispered as he
tenderly stroked her into wakefulness.
She began to shiver-against the cold, in fear of him,
and with revulsion of what he had done to her. He drew
the bearskin over them. There was a welt on her neck
now where he had ripped away the talisman,
encircling her throat like a necklet. His fingers
traced it.
She winced and began to cry. "He is dead now,
truly dead. You broke the thong! You have thrown his
helping spirit away! I would have worn an amulet for
you, had you been lost. I would have worn it even if you
were not my man. I would have worn a talisman for you
and for poor Nantu and for Eneela, too, if someone
had made one for them!"
He lay still, not knowing what to say, and then decided that
truth was best. He spoke of his jealousy and of his
love for his twin. He told her that he did not know
how, but that it was possible to ache for the return of a
beloved brother and to yearn for his death at the same
time. He spoke to her quietly of gentle things that
had nothing to do with a man and a woman lying together on a
bearskin-but of life within the band, of
childhood memories, disof times of endless light and of
endless dark, of star showers that flamed across the sky like
embers thrown to earth out of the spirit world, of auroras that
seemed to catch the stars in the vast black net of the
night, of sunrises and sunsets . . . and of his
love for her, regardless of what had happened between them
upon this skin of the great white bear.
"It will never be like this again between us, Naya. No
matter what has happened before, from this moment we begin
our lives. The next time that we join together, it will be
for the first time-only when you are unafraid and willing in
my arms, and then, for both of us it will be magic. It
will
-I swear it!"
She seemed to relax a little. He drew her
closer, and this time when she shivered, he rocked her,
holding her more gently than before. He spoke on, and
gradually his words took them both into the shallows of
sleep as, on the skin of the great white bear, they
lay close in each other's arms, and wrapped in the
magic of Umak's tender words, although their bodies
were not joined, they were one at last.
Manaravak, laughing, trotted back and forth.
Hidden within the scent of the mare, he was nickering and
snorting, whinnying and stomping his legs, and
to Demmi's amazement, the colt was following
him-walking when he walked, circling when he
circled, stopping when he stopped.
"I realize that the herd has not returned for this
colt, Manaravak," she said, "but you will never make
a mother for a horse!"
"No?" He laughed again, deeply,
good-naturedly. "The time spent in this camp has
restored your sense of humor. You look strong and
ready to travel. It is time for us to move on,
Sister! You watch! This colt will follow. Three
sleeps from now this colt will name me Brother just as you
do!"
"But there is still so much meat left uneaten!"
"We
must
leave it, Demmi!" All traces of humor were
suddenly gone from his voice. "The horses have not
returned for good reason, and this colt stays near in
fear of more dangerous carnivores than the son and
daughter of Torka."
She sat very straight. "Wanawut!"
"I have not wanted to speak of it until I was sure,
but I feel them behind us. After what you have done, it would
be best if we set our feet in the
tracks of our people. The mammoth walks ahead of us.
It is time for us to follow."
Torka sat beside the Lake of Watered Blood with
his bludgeon across his thighs and his carving blade
loose in his right hand as he tried to decide how best
to cut the image of this awesome body of water onto
the timeworn piece of whalebone. There was hardly a
space that was not incised with pictographs . . .
soon there would not be room enough to make another mark.
His brow settled into an introspective frown.
He did not like the implications of this and could not help
but wonder if his life or the life of the People might
come to an end when there was no space for future
inscriptions upon the bludgeon.
He scanned the northern waters. He had seen many
a
lake in his time, but never one like this. There were fish as
big as mammoth-fish that blew water into the sky.
No fish should be that big. Staring at his bludgeon,
Torka recalled that it was carved out of the broken rib
of just such a fish, whose carcass he had discovered upon
the vast steppelands beyond the Sea of Ice. He had
never been able to understand how so huge a fish had come
to die upon the land or how its bones had turned
to stone. It had all seemed like magic, so
he had taken up the piece of rib and had carried it
across a lifetime, to the shores of this great heaving
lake.
He liked the lake less now than when he had first
seen it. Even now, when the sun never left the sky,
there were huge, drifting plates of ice and bergs as
big as mountains. The water surged over the rocky
shore and headlands, and the ice was strange and restless.
He did not like the ever-present smell of salt. The
salt formed a residue of white upon the huts of the
People and everything else that was left outside for any
length of time.
Nevertheless, he had to admit that hunting was good and his people
seemed happy. Whatever had happened between Naya and
Umak seemed to have settled something between them. The
girl was deferential to the shaman now, and although more
quiet than usual, she seemed relaxed and comfortable
in the presence of her man. The women worked fine,
albeit unfamiliar skins, prepared sinew, pounded
blubber, and rendered fat into oil for their lamps. The
drying frames sagged under the weight of gutted water
birds, fine filets of Arctic char, and walrus
steaks. It
was
a good camp.
His only real regret was Larani. What a
proud, valiant woman she was! He should have forced
her to accept his offer. Short of that, he could at least
have insisted that young Tankh begin to gather new-woman
gifts for her. But that had seemed a travesty-too
much good woman for a boy, even if Tankh had been
willing.
Troubled again, Torka stared out to sea. The meat of the
animals that abounded here was strange to his taste and
so easy to obtain that it made him edgy. The walrus
bellowed and bawled but rarely moved away when the
hunters strode in to make their kills.
Torka watched a gyrfalcon as it shrieked above
him on wings that cut through the air as silently as
feathered blades. The bird led Torka's eyes
across the open ocean to an eternally clouded horizon.
What lay beneath those clouds? he
wondered with deep trepidation. If there was a for
shore, he could not see it. When the wind blew from the
north, it carried the scent of ice-
only
ice. Even now, in the time of endless light, the north
wind remained cold, as though it blew out of the land where
the world of men ended and the world of spirits began. The thought
made him restless. What would winter be like
here?
His hand tightened on his bludgeon. It was time
to leave this camp! Umak and Dak would not approve,
but Simu openly hungered for big game that did not
taste of fish. Grek had enough supplies of pounded
fat to keep his gums soothed and content.
The
pups were big now, and growing fat; a long haul
inland into more wind-protected country would do them good.
But what of lana and the baby? The woman of Grek
remained feverish. The infant was too sickly to be
subjected to a long trek across the camp, let
alone across the country.
Torka exhaled his frustration. How he loathed this
north country! And where was the mammoth? His luck had
always lain in the shadow of Life Giver! If the
mammoth did not live in the land, how long could he
or his people hope to survive in it?
"Torka!" He turned at Yona's summons.
"Come quickly!" sobbed the child. "Please! lana's
new baby is dead!"
The People kept a deathwatch over lana's baby for
five days. Umak danced the dances that might
summon its spirit back from the spirit world, implored it
to return to its people, and assured it that it was
loved and wanted, that its mother's breasts would ache without
its little mouth to suckle them.
But lana's breasts already ached. Delirious, she was
mercifully unaware that they had swelled to three times
their normal size or that her nipples had cracked
and now produced bloodied pus in place of milk,
or that the flow that came from her grotesquely distended
womb was no longer clotted but free flowing and as
foul to the nostrils as the milk upon which she had been
trying to nourish her newborn child.
The woman drifted in and out of consciousness. In her
delirium she relived her youth, speaking to her first
man, her children. When she woke, she asked for
Tankh and Chuk and told them to look after Grek and
Yona.
lana also spoke softly to Naya, exhorting her
to be a
woman of courage and to bear children lest she find herself
old, unloved, and childless.
When Grek came to his woman's side, lana
tried to talk, but her weariness was absolute. Spirit
Sucker was with her, and her spirit became enmeshed with
his.
And so the shaman danced for lana, too. He raised
magic smokes on behalf of the wandering
life spirits of lana and her newborn son while
Naya wept and Grek sat alone, refusing to be
comforted. He rocked himself and mumbled like an old man
whose spirit wished to leave this world and follow his woman and
infant into the realm of the dead, where they might walk the
wind together forever.
On a bleak, windy day lana and her newborn
son were placed upon a low, rocky headland to look
upon the sky forever. When the last of the ceremonial
songs were sung, the People made their way in solemn
procession back to camp. Only old Grek
hung back to sit beside the fur-covered mounds of his
woman and child while the restless waters of the Lake of
Watered Blood surged in and out and lapped higher and
higher at the shore.
All day Grek stayed with the bodies, and his people
mourned in silence. The wind rose and wailed,
whisking gravel into the air and sending it flying across the
land like singing insects. That night the old man sat
by his woman and child in the bitter wind and the light of the
midnight sun. Tankh, Chuk, and Yona went out
to him, but only Yona came back, and she was
screaming.
"The water has risen to take our mother and brother!"
Disbelieving, the People rushed from their encampment
in time to see Grek and his boys wading against the pull
of a wind-driven tidal surge that would have swept the
old man away along with the bodies of his woman and
newborn son had Tankh and Chuk not held him
fast. Never before had the People witnessed such a thing.
"Let me go!" bellowed Bison Man. "Let
me follow!"
But his sons would not let go, and in the end, Grek,
Lion no more, was an ancient, exhausted,
grief-stricken hunter who no longer had the strength
to resist the pull of the sea or the strong arms of his
sons.
"The time of mourning is over. We must leave this
camp," said Torka. "We will go back across the
barrens,
south and then east to the edge of the drowned land in search of
big game, our totem, and our luck."
Simu's face split in a broad, expansive
smile. "I hear good sense from your mouth again at
last, Torka!" he proclaimed, then commanded
Summer Moon and Larani to prepare for traveling
at once.
"Wait!" Umak said. "I do not understand. There has
been sadness here, yes, but this camp has been a good
one. We have meat and provisions enough to see us
through the worst of winters. Why leave it?"
"I can see nothing good in this country, Umak,"
replied Torka.
Umak's brows came together across the bridge of his
nose. His father's words struck him as a personal
insult. "I am Shaman, and I can see nothing
bad in it! There is meat for the taking, and fine
pelts, and fat and-was
"Two of our number have died in this place, my
son. The lake has risen to take them into itself. This
is bad enough for me."
"And now we know why these waters taste and smell like
blood!" injected Simu with a shudder. "I haven't
liked the looks or the stink of this place from the
start."
Umak felt the stirrings of anger. "You haven't
liked anything in so many moons that I've lost
track of when you started your eternal complaining!"
Torka raised a hand. "We must go to the east, in
search of game fit for men of the open steppe."
"Yes!" Simu cried jubilantly. "Meat with
hair and hooves! Meat with legs, not fins! Man
meat! Not meat that barks at us like our dogs!"
Standing close by, Dak placed an arm
protectively around Swan's shoulder as
he looked at Simu dubiously. "There was little enough
meat in the barrens before, Father. Why lead our women and
children out of a camp full of meat on the assumption that
we will find it now?"
"Where we find Life Giver, we will find meat,"
said Torka coolly. "It has always been so. It
will be so again. We should not have come so far north. But now
the sun is high. Like Larani, the land that lies behind
us has had a chance to heal. Like Larani, it will be
new again."
The unscarred half of Larani's face flushed at
the unexpected compliment.
Umak was too upset to notice. "And if it is
not?" he pressed.
"Bah!" declared Simu. "We will leave caches of
food and supplies behind us. If things do not work out for
us, we can always come back!"
"No," said Torka. "We will never come back. A
land that is not fit for mammoth is not fit for men.
We will disband this camp and make ready to walk to the
east."
Umak was trembling in his effort to control his anger as
he stood his ground and said in a hostile voice,
"Be careful, Father. Someday you may lead us all
off the edge of the world in your quest for the sun!"

The People broke camp and moved on. No one looked
back except Umak. In this far land by the Lake of
Watered Blood, his prophecy had come to pass:
Hunting had been good, there was food for all, and
Naya had truly become his at last. Thus was he
loath to leave. Again and again he called upon the Seeing
Wind to grant him visions of what lay ahead, but the
only wind that touched him was the north wind. He
turned back to linger along the shore of the great lake.
As the barking animals of the sea watched him, he
placed offerings of gratitude to the spirits of this
special place and beseeched the forces of Creation
and the Seeing Wind to grant him a sign that would
convince Torka to stay. But there was nothing. The north
wind blew hard at his back, as though driving him
on. Unhappily, Umak was forced to concede that perhaps
this was the only sign he was going to get. And if this was
the case, then Torka was right: Maybe it was time
to move on.
The dogs dragged fully loaded sledges, and the children
wore back rolls packed tight with their belongings.
The women walked in silence, bent almost double under
fully loaded pack frames, and the heavy leather
brow band that helped to keep the weight of
Naya's pack from shifting forward cut into her skin.
Plodding along beside her, Honee noted her
discomfort.
"You didn't line your brow strap with buckskin
padding! Did you never have to carry a fully loaded
pack frame when you walked with Grek?"
Naya sighed. "Never."
Honee clucked her tongue. "It is a woman's
pride to know that she can ease the burdens of her man.
Grek has not done well to spare you this pride,
Naya. Your brow would have been callused by now, and
your load would have seemed lighter to you."
Naya turned to see her grandfather trudging along with
Yona and his boys beside him. He looked so old!
So bent! He was an ancient, humpbacked,
grizzle-haired bull, who would live only as
long as his teeth. And Naya knew that his teeth had
begun to die long ago. Tears stung her eyes, and
her heart ached for him and for herself. What a silly,
self-centered child she had been! How could she have
assumed that she was the center of Grek's life? Her
grandfather had loved and spoiled her, yes, but without
lana, Grek had lost all will to live. Nothing that
Naya had been able to say or do had given it back
to him. Now that lana and the infant were dead,
Naya was not convinced that it was nor her fault. What
had gone wrong? She had done no more or less than
Demmi had done on that snowy day when she had come
stalking into the hut of blood, shaking snow from her
ruff and cleansing her hands before starting to deliver
Snow Eater's pups.
If only she had been more careful about maintaining the
contents of her medicine bag, she would have had the necessary
leaves, roots, and dried thousand-leaf to stop
lana's bleeding and cool the heat of her fever. But
instead of searching these things out, she had been more concerned
about her dwindling supply of red berries. Sadly,
because she had selfishly kept most of them for her own
use, there had not even been one of them left for
lana. She had failed miserably in her
responsibilities as a medicine woman.
"lana was right in all of the things she used to say about
me," Naya admitted quietly to Honee. "If
lana were here, I would tell her that I will try to be
a better woman from now on-a caring and thoughtful and
obedient woman."
Honee paused and looked at her. "You do not have
to tell her that, dear one. She knows."
"How can she know?"
Honee turned back to her rummaging.
"Her spirit walks the wind, doesn't it? And the wind
is following us. Even as
we speak I am sure that she is with us! And she is
smiling at you, Naya. You did your best for her.
And in the last few days you have been all that you say you
wish to be." Honee reached into a pouch at her waist
and smiled at Naya. "I almost forgot. I found it
underneath the bed skins when I was straightening up the
pit hut a few sleeps ago. I meant to give
it to you long before now. It is yours, isn't it?"
Naya stared as her fire sister rose and handed her
Manaravak's talisman. Deep within her heart a
voice cried out to her:
Throw it away! Throw it away!
But she did not. Her fingers curled around it. "Why,
yes! It
is
mine. Thank you, Honee. But do not mention it
to Umak. Manaravak made it for me a very long time
ago, and I have chosen not to wear it lest it remind
Umak of his brother and make him sad."
Endless days of light spread out before the travelers as
they trekked inland across the barrens. Under a bright sun
and in a strong steady wind, Summer Moon went
into labor. A temporary camp was made,
but the baby was born so easily and quickly that not even
half the lean-tos were up before its cries of life were
heard.
Naya stood by in silence, her healing skills
uncalled for and unneeded as Honee nudged her
meaningfully,
"You see?" asked the big woman. "Birth is not
always a terrible thing. When you become a mother, you may
deliver with no trouble at all!"
Three days later, at Summer Moon's
insistence, the band made ready to move on. But
Grek sat down upon his traveling pack and would not
get up.
"This man is tired, old, and useless. This man will
walk the world of men no more."
"No!" Chuk was clearly devastated by his father's
words.
"Get up, Old Lion!" demanded Tankh.
"Who will hunt for Yona if you set aside your
spears forever?"
Grek looked up briefly, then stared at his feet
again. "You will hunt for Yona. You are man enough.
I am tired . . . tired of being a man at
all."
Silence fell upon the travelers.
Then the daughter of Simu walked to the old man,
slung off her pack, and seated herself beside him.
"I will stay with this old man," Larani
proclaimed.
"Go away," Grek said through the wind-wafted
tangles of his hair.
"I will not go away!" she insisted, looking
unflinchingly at the incredulous faces of her people.
"I, too, am tired. I, too, am of little use
to this people. G. Leave us. Grek and Larani will walk
the wind forever."
An exhalation of shock and dismay went out of every mouth.
Torka, understanding her motives, liked and admired
what he saw.-
Simu
appraised his daughter suspiciously. "What is
this, Larani?"
"You are eager for me to be mated, aren't you?
Well, the moment has finally come! As Swan was
allowed to name the man of her choice, I will now do the
same. I choose Grek."
The old man raised his head. "I do not choose
you!"
"But you must. You have no woman. In this band, Torka
has said that every woman must be mated, and every
man must do his share to increase the number of the P.
Torka has been kind and patient with me, but now
I am well enough to see that I have been selfish. I
cannot allow the men of this band to covet my "beauty"
forever, and I will not allow myself to remain a burden
to my brother when it is not necessary. I
must
take a man or forfeit my right to live within this
band."
Grek stared at her as though she had lost her mind.
"Torka offered to take you to his fire circle.
Take
him."
Larani shrugged. "Torka has a woman."
Lonit was clearly distraught. "For the good of the band,
I would-was
Torka elbowed her to silence. "I do not ask for a
woman twice! Larani has missed her chance with
me!" he said sternly, doing his best not to smile,
while ignoring the befuddled expression upon his beloved
Lonit's face.
"Then take my son Tankh!" insisted Grek
angrily. "He has no woman!"
Larani looked at Grek and smiled sweetly.
"This I would do, but Tankh has no
appreciation for older women ... or for
"interesting"-looking women like me. In time the
eldest son of Grek will smile upon one of the younger
girls-Li, Uni, or Yona-won't you,
Tankh?"
The youth said nothing, but he looked at Larani with a
tremulous smile of relief.
"Stay as you will," the old man snarled, "but this man
will not be your man! Grek is not the fool you think he
is, girl. Grek will not walk on with the band out of
concern for you!"
Larani folded her hands upon her lap. "Nevertheless,
I will stay."
"So be it, then," said Torka, and led his people on.
He refused to listen to the weeping of the women and children
or to Dak's arguments against the abandonment.
The headman walked with Umak, gradually drawing
him away from the others as he spoke quietly,
glad to have a mutual concern that would bring them close
again. Umak was in a sullen and unforgiving mood, but
as Torka continued to speak, Umak raised a
telling brow and listened approvingly for the first time in
many days. But then Lonit came up, took hold
of Torka's arm, and actually shouted at him.
"Torka, we cannot do this! We must go back
for them!"
"Father, you can't just leave them!" Swan was devastated
as she walked with Dak. Kharn trudged along beside
his father, proudly carrying his own pack frame.
"Larani is a woman with no man to speak for her,"
Torka explained evenly. "She has the right
to speak for herself- unless, of course, her father were
to forbid it." He stopped abruptly, and all of his
people and the dogs of the band stopped with him. "Do you forbid
it, Simu?"
Simu looked like a cornered animal as Summer
Moon and Uni gazed at him hopefully. "I
... no ... I cannot forbid it! Larani was right.
If no man will mate her, what good is she to the
band? None, I say! Bah! It is a clever
game that you and Larani play, Torka. I am
onto both of you. She will follow soon enough with that
toothless Old Lion ambling along at her side,
growling to himself."
"But what if she does not? What if
he
does not?" exclaimed a tearful Naya.
Simu's face twisted with pain and then with anger and
hatred. He was glaring at Naya now, causing her
to shrivel with fear of him. "Your grandfather is
useless. What he does is no concern of mine! As
long as we put the Lake of Watered Blood and the
barrens far behind us, I will walk easy! If
Larani wishes to stake her own worthless life on
the virtue of what is left of an old man's
pride, what do you expect me to do? She's been as
good as dead since Daughter of the Sky picked her
up and threw her in the river-and all because of you!"
Tears stung Naya's eyes. "I did not mean
to-was
"Bah! What's done is done. There's no use
slobbering about it!"
"You might at least
pretend
to care about Larani." Dak's voice was heavy with
disgust, his eyes hard with accusation. "But no matter.
If there is no sign of my sister and the old man
by the time we settle in for sleep, I will go back for
them. I am sorry to go against your will, Torka."
"And I will go with you!" Swan proclaimed as she
took a step closer to Dak. She looked at her
father with a touching mixture of indignation and apology.
"Larani has been as a sister to me since we were
babies. I am sorry, Father, but I cannot just walk
off and leave her."
Torka shook his head at them. "How righteous you
are. But what about them? Is Simu the only man
who can dare to face an unpleasant situation with
honesty?"
Thinking himself vindicated, Simu stood taller.
"It is no easy thing," he agreed.
"No ..." said Torka. "It is no easy thing,
but Larani saw it at once. Grek is broken and
near the end of his days. For want of the very pride of which
Simu speaks, he must be given cause to want
to live again and follow on his own, or we might as
well leave him behind."
"But if he has truly lost the will to live,
Larani's life is at risk as long as she stays
with him," said Dak.
"Yes," Torka affirmed. "It is."
Lonit was indignant. "I do not understand you,
Torka. Grek may refuse to eat or drink
until he grows too weak to lift a spear. If
danger threatens, even if he wanted to help
Larani, he will not have the strength."
"Danger
will
threaten," Umak predicted. "It will threaten
soon, before the old man has a chance
to lose what vigor he has left. Of this you can be
sure."
"How?" asked Jhon with awe. "Has the Seeing
Wind spoken to you again?"
A conspiratorial look passed between Torka and
Umak. "Something even better has spoken to me,"
replied the shaman, and for the first time since leaving the
Lake of Watered Blood, he laughed with pure
delight. "Torka has told me of his plan!"
In the skins of fur seals and walrus, Torka led
Umak, Dak, and the boys in a wide circle
until they began to close on Grek and Larani.
With Simu back in camp guarding the women, children, and
dogs, the other hunters advanced on Grek with
infinite caution, crawling, keeping their
distance-close enough to be seen but not identified. Their
movement was guaranteed to drive the old hunter mad
with curiosity. They watched him: His head was up,
scanning the area. Larani was on her feet, looking
tense and nervous.
On Torka's signal-a fine imitation of a
frightened ground squirrel-the hunters responded with the
snarls and growls that would bespeak a brief, savage
feeding frenzy. Then they were silent, absolutely
silent.
Grek stiffened, alert to danger but evidently still
telling himself that he did not care enough about life to be
threatened by its alternative.
Torka did another ground-squirrel imitation.
Umak answered with the menacing howl of a hungry
wolf.
Larani froze, hands at her sides, turning
lightly on her feet, her head raised. She was
speaking to Grek, imploring, then clearly berating.
His posture was stiffer than before, and something about the way
he held his shoulders told the hunters that he was
listening to the young woman.
No one moved. Then Umak loosed another howl.
Torka, Dak, and the boys set up an
impressive chorus of snarls and growls that had
Grek leaping to his feet just as Larani,
despairing of protection, made a grab for one of
his spears. The old man roared at her in protest
and shook the fist that held the spear in her face.
Torka smiled. His ruse had worked. He was so
filled with satisfaction that he did not notice the
howls that came from too far away to have originated with
Umak and Dak or any of the boys.
Umak and Dak were lounging and catching their breath on
hastily rolled seal and walrus skins,
and the boys hurriedly assumed positions of feigned
ease. Not long after, old Grek came stalking
into camp with Larani trailing at a respectful
distance.
"Why do you all stare?" he demanded. "Old I
am, yes! And tired, yes! But there are many
hungry wolves waiting to feed upon my bones out there
. . . wolves that would also eat of the flesh of this
stubborn girl of Simu's. For Larani's sake
I have returned-not for my own. Maybe tomorrow I will
walk the wind with Wallah and lana. But now I have
walked a long
way and am hungry. Since I am not to
be
eaten, I see no reason why I should not eat!"
The rest of the band prepared to eat with him. No one said
a word about the true identity of the wolves that had
driven the old man back into the company of the living,
nor did he show the slightest suspicion that he was
sharing a meal with them. Naya and Swan both came
eagerly forward to bring meat and drink to him, but
Larani stepped forward.
"A hunter who has a woman to tend his fire
circle needs no charity from the women of other men,"
said the daughter of Simu.
"Go away, Larani!" commanded the old man. "My
woman is dead! I no longer have a fire
circle! Tomorrow I will walk the wind."
"Tomorrow will see to itself," she countered softly. "Now the
daughter of Simu walks in the shadow of one who
has saved her from wolves and from drowning. The honor
of this woman's ancestors demands that she look
to his needs."
The old man growled impatiently at her
deference, but Larani would not be growled away. She
brought pounded fat to him and knelt quietly before him
as she awaited any command that he might choose
to give her.
Grek chose to give her none, but it had become
apparent to the old man that Larani was his only
source for food. He begrudgingly condescended
to accept the fat from her, even though he turned his
back as he ate. When he lay down to sleep, he
did so without a word in her direction and not before dragging
his pack roll away from Larani's.
Dak took his sister by her arm and tried to escort
her to the comfort of his own fire circle. "You will always
be welcome," he told her.
Larani thanked him and sent him away.
Swan and Naya came close and whispered
low lest the old man hear and be offended. "You are like
my sister, Larani!" Naya said. "Thank you for
being so brave for my grandfather's sake! What would I
do if he walks the wind? You do not think he still will,
do you?"
Larani's face hardened as she looked at the two
of them and whispered back: "You have Umak to look after
you, Naya. And Swan, you have Dak. Now I will have
Grek. It is what we always wanted, isn't it?
To have our own men to fuss and worry over us? Go now.
Fuss and worry over your own and leave mine to me!"
Swan's hand came out and stayed Larani's
movements as she fumbled with the thongs of her pack
roll. "Larani, he is
old.
He is
not
the one you want."
"The one I want is dead! And even if he were not,
he would not want me now. No man wants me now!
I will stay with Grek. He
needs
me! It is enough!"
Without ceremony she picked up her traveling pack
and, ignoring Swan and Naya, trudged
back to Grek and lay down beside him.
backslash
Later, when Grek awoke, Larani was already up,
kneeling beside a small fire over which she was roasting
skewered cubes of walrus blubber. The scent of
seared, heat-softened, dripping fat was more than he
could resist. He did not refuse it when she held
it out to him, and although he did not say as much, he
knew what the making of even the smallest of fires
must have cost her.
When the band moved on, Larani walked beside him. The
old man did not send her away, nor did he
choose to walk the wind that day ... or the next.
"You are a stubborn lion of a girl," he said at
length. "A young, scarred lion who growls back
at the forces of Creation, no matter what they bring
against you, yes?"
"They have brought me to you, Grek. Why should I growl
against that?"
He heard the bitterness in her voice and, understanding,
held no rancor. "Because you are young and I am old
. . . very old."
She eyed him sadly. "I think I am older."
"Life has hurt you, Larani, but you still have your
youth. It is this that makes you brave and as
kind as the clever wolves who flushed me from the cover
of my sadness and made me want to live again."
The unscarred half of her face paled with
amazement. "You
knewl
But how? When I first heard their howling, I was not
certain that it was not wolves."
"Too many years has this man hunted in the way of
wolves not to understand them! Such noisy wolves! And
how breathy were the men of my band as they pretended to be
at ease when you and I walked into camp."
"It was not done to rob you of your pride but to make you
see that there was still need of it-and of you."
"Yes, this I know. But what would you have done had I
not been frightened back into the world of the living?"
She did not hesitate. "I would have stayed with you."
"And died? Torka would never have allowed it." She
thought a moment. "I would have stayed." He saw the
earnestness in her poor, ruined face and knew that she
meant what she said. He was the best hope of a man
that she could ever have . . . and still maintain some dignity.
"I
will
be your man, Larani," he told her. "I will
hunt for you. I will protect you. I will
share with you the best portions of my kills, for in
truth-as you may already know-pounded fat and prechewed
meat are all that is left to me! Do not expect much
of me, young woman, for my teeth are not the only part
of me that has grown weak . . . and in my heart I
will always grieve for my lana."
Shyly but firmly, she reached out and threaded her arm
through his. "You are not the only one who misses
lana, Grek. Tankh and Chuk are nearly men
now, and there is much you may yet teach them as they
assume more responsibility on future hunts.
And Yona is still a little girl who needs her father.
lana would smile to know that you have not forgotten her children.
They are a part of her, and as long as they live,
lana will live in them and in the little ones who will come after
them."
He stopped and looked down at her for a long time.
Then: "You are a good and caring woman, daughter of
Simu. Together we will be strong-a pair of lions.
Grek and Larani . . . each supporting the other.
It will be a good thing."
And it was so. As Torka led his people across the barrens,
through the tussock forests, and back into the country that
lay in the high, blue shadow of the Mountains That
Walk, Larani stayed resolutely at
Grek's side. She cooked, carried, pounded
fat, and saw to it that the old man's pack was not as
heavily loaded as it appeared to be. She made
certain that Tankh and Chuk, although they occupied a
separate lean-to, paid the proper attention and
respect to their
father. She was diligent in her care of Yona, seeing
to it that the girl was well fed and properly clothed and
that the tender skin of her sullen, resentful little face
was slathered with fat against the clouds of biting flies
that swarmed upon the summer tundra whenever the wind was
down.
"You are a good mother to my girl," Grek told her
with approval.
She nodded deferentially and did not tell him that
whenever he was not looking, Yona resisted her
ministrations.
"I do not need a mother!" Yona told her.
"Especially not a sickening-to-look-at woman!"
Larani appraised the child without visible reaction.
"Good," she replied. "I do not need a daughter,
either- especially a sickening-to-be-with girl! What
I do for you, Yona, I do for your father . . . and in
memory of your mother. You are going to have to put up with
me and do as I tell you, because I am not
going away."
Yona's mouth worked into a clump of hateful
puckers. "I made Naya go away!"
Larani frowned. "Be that as it may, I am here
to stay at your father's fire circle. You will not make
me go away, Yona. Only Grek can do that."
As the days wore on, Yona came to a grudging
realization that Grek had no intention of sending
Larani away. With the young woman ever at his side,
Grek walked with new purpose. He was always
finding little things in his path to make Yona
smile-flowers, seed heads, and stalks of lichen that
looked like caribou antler. His voice was strong when
he spoke to his sons, urging them to learn from their
father as he pointed out the subtleties of the land and the
ever-changing summer sky. When their interest waned,
Larani reinforced his purpose.
She suggested that all the youths would benefit from
walking close to her man and listening to his words.
"The wisdom of Grek has been born out of a
lifetime of experience. It is a gift to the People!
Accept this gift! Cherish it!"
She saw Torka watching her with open surprise and
then with admiration. He insisted that she be obeyed.
Later, while the old man slept and she
sat mending a snag in the sole of one of his
moccasins and stuffing extra mosses and lichens into the
padded innersole, Torka and Lonit came to her.
The headman's woman knelt and handed her a
bracelet
of braided sinew onto which a single shell-shaped
stone had been stitched. "Here, I have taken a stone
from my necklet and made a gift for you."
I caret arani stared at it in disbelief. It was a
rare and unprecedented offering. Lonit often told the
story of how she had gathered the shell-like stones in that
strange land beyond the Sea of Ice. Over the years,
all the shells had been lost except for the few that
remained interwoven with wolf claws onto the one
necklet that she took off only when she slept.
As Larani stared up at the necklace, she saw that
a bead was missing. "I cannot accept this," she
murmured, handing up the twist of sinew with its single
precious bead. "It is too fine for me."
"Not fine enough!" Torka contradicted brusquely
and, with his arm about his woman, turned and escorted
Lonit away without another word.
Larani sat in silence, holding their gift in her
cupped hands. How fine Lonit and Torka were,
how perfectly matched and beautiful
to behold as the wind gusted fitfully in the fringes of
their garments and in their obsidian-black hair- like a
pair of rare dark swans, serene and confident in their
love for one another.
Soon after, when the rest of the band lay bundled beneath
their traveling robes lest the marauding blackflies
attack them while they slept in the light of the
midnight sun, Grek drew Larani close and
held her in his arms.
His touch was caring, solicitous of her scars. His
passion was brief-exhausted almost before it was begun-and
he told her that he was sorry. She assured him that
she did not mind, that being with him was enough for her. She
nestled close and stroked his big, crooked back
until he relaxed beneath her touch. She listened to him
begin to snore and suck the remaining stubs of his
teeth. With a sigh, she wondered what that big,
broad back of his must have been like when it was young and
straight and rippling with the power of a hunter in his
prime. He would have been a man for other men to envy
. . . and the best of men for any woman. But it was so
long ago, it did not matter. She sighed and, trying
to decide if she cared or not, drifted off
to sleep. With the bracelet that had been a gift from the
headman and his woman knotted about her
unmaimed wrist, she dreamed of another lion . .
. the black-eyed, black-maned Manaravak . .
. son of Torka . . . tall, lean,
magnificent, and as wild as
the wolves that were calling to one another in the dark,
tumbled ranges of the south.
Torka also dreamed, of yesterday, today, and tomorrow ...
of the living and the dead, of laughter and tears ... of his
band trudging across the endless landscapes into the face
of the rising sun . . . and of the wind blowing at their
back, blowing them on and on as though they were of no more
importance than seed filaments cast upon the tides
of time at summer's end.
He sat up. Wolves called across the lean and
hungry land. He listened to their song. The wind
distorted it; it sounded almost human.
The wind had turned. It was cold and made him think
of lana and her infant, of Nantu and Eneela, and of
Demmi and Manaravak. The pain of loss was a
spear in his heart. Too many ghosts rode this wind.
He sighed, wondering why his spirit felt as desolate
as the land across which he was leading his band.
He pulled his sleeping robe higher around his
shoulders and tried to think of the way that Dak and Swan
walked hand in hand these days, of how Naya
was becoming a reasonable young woman at last, of how
Umak beamed with lovesick delight every time he
looked at her, and of how the fine, bold heart of
Larani had overcome the inconsolable grief of
old Grek and given him the will to live.
Good things, thought Torka. And yet, although his
sleeping robe kept the bite of the wind away, the
coldness invaded him again-an inner coldness, of doubt
and misgiving. Larani had given Grek the heart
to live-but what of her own heart? Naya obeyed
Umak-but with downcast eyes. And Demmi and
Manaravak were dead.
Scowling and suddenly fiercely irritated, he got
to his feet and walked restlessly about the traveling
camp. He thought of caribou and bison and vast herds
of migrating, grazing animals moving ever eastward
into the face of the rising sun. Since his boyhood he
had seen them do this, and since his youth he had followed
until now, at last, the herds were gone and he had
reached a land where there was no sign that they had ever
passed this way at all.
Where did they go? How did they get through the
mountains?
Wolves were howling to the south again. He stopped;
they were the strangest sounding wolves that he
had ever heard. The wind turned, and he turned with
it, toward the wolf sound. A mammoth trumpeted.
Suddenly every dog in camp was on its feet and
barking. The wolves were howling again-close now, very
close. Even as Torka watched in disbelief and
Lonit began to weep with gladness beside him, the great
mammoth totem, Life Giver, emerged at the
crest of the far hills.
And then Torka was not the only man to be standing in his
sleeping robes staring toward the south, for the "wolf
sounds" were at last recognizable as the jubilant
cries of a man and a woman.
The mammoth was not alone. Two human figures
walked in its shadow, with a horse following close
behind.
And as Torka cried out with joy all his earlier
misgivings fell away. He had been right to lead his
people away from the Lake of Watered Blood! For here
at the base of the cold, blue vastnesses of the
Mountains That Walk, he stood with his face to the
rising sun and turned to find his luck in the shadow of a
mammoth. Demmi and Manaravak had returned.
He
had
found his luck at last!
Sayanah, with the dogs at his heels, led the children and
youths of the band out to greet Manaravak, waving and
shouting jubilant welcome. Grek followed his
boys, and Honee, gushing with happiness, waved
Umak on as she hurried forward after Jhon and
Li. But Umak could not move. Stunned, he stood
with Naya and stared ahead in disbelief.
Naya's eyes were very wide and round as she whispered,
"I knew they would come back! I
knew backslash was
"Manaravak! Demmi! My
children!"
Lonit was laughing and weeping all at once as
Manaravak, in a robe of striped horse skin,
loosed the tether of the colt and, with Demmi at his
side, ran to greet their mother and lift her high into the
air with a shout of pure joy.
Umak watched Torka follow the others out of
camp. The headman walked slowly, regally, as
though wishing to prolong the moment. Dak and Swan
walked with him, with Kharn riding on his father's
shoulder. It took no shaman's magic for Umak
to see the hesitancy in their steps or to tell from their
set expressions that Dak and Swan were ill at
ease. Swan paused and turned back
while Dak and Torka continued
on ahead. Umak was not surprised; he knew that
she would come to stand beside him, and she did.
Manaravak had put Lonit down, and Torka
wrapped his powerful arms around his woman and his
returning children and held them as though he would never let
them go.
Swan's face was pale, her features set, her
eyes dulled by shock and disappointment. "Some shaman
you have turned out to be, Brother. You swore to Dak
that you had seen them dead. What will our sister say when
she finds out that I took her place at Dak's
fire circle? Oh, Umak, how can I face
her? How can Dak face her? What can either of us
possibly say to make her understand?"
"The truth," said Larani solemnly as she and
Simu stopped next to Swan. "Kham needed a
mother, and Dak needed care. You have done no wrong,
Swan. Umak may be a shaman, but he cannot know
everything! Demmi will understand and be grateful."
"Will she?" Swan's voice was tremulous with
uncertainty.
Simu shook his head. "Look at that, would you?" he
asked, with awe and admiration. "I've never thought much
of your twin, Umak, but only Manaravak
would dare to return to his people from the world beyond this world and
bring a pregnant Demmi back with him! He may
have been raised by beasts, but he is a son equal in
daring to his father!"
Umak winced. "Demmi was with child before she left this
camp!"
Simu raised a telling brow. "Was she?"
"All the women suspected it!"
Simu smirked. "Perhaps, but whose baby is it,
Umak? Dak's or your brother's? Come,
Shaman. Are you trying to tell me that you can see the
truth of this more clearly than you saw the death of your
own brother and sister?"
Swan caught her breath, aghast. "Tell him,
Umak. Demmi and Manaravak would never-to It is
forbidden!"
"Enough!" Umak's emotions were in turmoil. "My
brother and sister have returned from the world beyond this world, and
that is enough for me . . . and for you, too, Simu, if you
know what is best for you!"
"Do you threaten me, Umak?" Simu appeared
hopeful.
Umak measured the man. "By your union with Summer
Moon, you are also my brother, Simu. Why must you
always make yourself the burr under every man's
pack frame?"
Simu raised his hands in mocking affability. "You
are the
shaman, Umak. You should be able to tell me. After
all, I am only thinking of the ways of your
ancestors and of the good of the band. If your sister is
pregnant by your brother, it is no offense to me or
to the customs of my people . . . only to my son if
he has not consented to-was
"The People are one!" Umak interrupted hotly.
"So Torka always says," Simu agreed
contemptuously. Then, shaking his head, he went
to pay what respects he would to the returning pair.
"Dak will never forgive you for this, Brother," Swan
said mournfully to Umak. "I can only hope that he
will forgive me."
"He loves you," Larani said, staring forward with the
saddest expression that Umak had ever seen.
"He loves Demmi more!" Without another word lest
she burst into tears, Swan followed Simu.
Umak took Naya's hand. "Come, Naya. We
must greet Manaravak and Demmi. And Naya,
remember that you are
my
woman now. Whatever was between you and my
brother is finished. Let this be the last time that we have
cause to speak of it."
Naya walked beside him, her thoughts and emotions in as
much turmoil as Umak's. The others cleared a
way for the shaman, so suddenly she was standing before
Manaravak and Demmi with her right hand held
tightly in the curl of Umak's fingers. At a
loss as to what to do, she stared down at her toes.
Manaravak pulled his brother into an embrace that
broke the shaman's reserve. Naya felt the
change in Umak as he threw his arms around his
long-lost brother and sister.
"Manaravak! Demmi! I am not the shaman I
thought I was," he admitted as he stepped back
to beam at them. "The only vision I could see of you
was a vision of my fear of your death! But look at the
two of you!"
Naya ventured an upward peek and caught her
breath. Demmi did not look well at all. Her
eyes were on Dak and Kharn-such warm eyes, so
full of love for her man and son. Naya was
startled. Demmi had changed!
But Manaravak had not. Now that he had finished
hugging Umak, his eyes were devouring her. She
wanted to look away but could not. A
broad, purplish gash ran from the corner of his mouth
upward across his cheek to his temple. It
looked like a striping of ceremonial paint, and yet,
coupled with smaller scars on his brow, it enhanced his
looks. In his roughly fashioned but well-made
garments, with his hair hanging loose over his
horsehide cloak and a garland of thickly strung
leaves adorning his shoulders, he was magnificent.
She looked back down at her feet and took a
step closer to Umak as he possessively put his
arm around her.
"Naya is my woman now," Umak informed
Manaravak.
"We knew it would be so," Demmi said quickly.
"Didn't we, Manaravak?"
Manaravak did not speak.
Demmi broke the silence. "Remember your
promise, Manaravak . . . and our gift."
"Gift! Yes!" Manaravak's affirmation was
explosive. "For Naya, granddaughter of
Grek!"
Naya looked up. "A gift? For me?" She
felt Umak's arm tighten about her as Manaravak
lifted the garland from his neck and laid it around her
shoulders. She was instantly engulfed in the
rich fragrance of wormwood and willow, of
thousand-leaf and bearberry, of sorrel and angelica,
and of so many of the healing leaves that she had shown him long
ago on that day in the gorge below Spear Mountain when
he had made her laugh and they had frolicked like
happy children until, in the end, he had made her
cry. The memory disturbed her, as did his
closeness. Sooner or later, all men made her
cry.
Her free hand touched the leaves, as if she were not
certain that they were real. There were so many that her fingers
could not penetrate the varying textures of gray and
green; nevertheless she probed deep enough to discover a
sprig of dried berries. She plucked one.
An exclamation of delight escaped her lips as
she looked at the familiar, wrinkled orb. "Oh,
Manaravak, thank you! This is the best of gifts!
There is nothing I have wanted more!"
Beside her, Umak went rigid. She could feel the
anger in him as he commanded in a voice that was tight with
control, "Give the garland back, Naya. You may
accept gifts from no man unless I consent to the
giving."
Naya pouted. "But Manaravak has brought me
berries."
"Give them back."
The tension in the air was palpable until Manaravak
broke it with a conciliatory outward gesturing of his
hands.
"This gift I bring is not for my brother's woman,
Umak! This gift is for Medicine Woman! This
gift is for all the People! To make them live long and
to take away the bad spirits of fever and pain whenever
they are sick!"
"Oh!" cried Naya, suddenly so distraught that her
hands flew to her face lest others see her tears as
she thought of her failure to heal lana and the baby.
"What have I said wrong?" asked Manaravak. "The
gift I bring ... it is a bad gift?"
"No," replied Umak. "It is not a bad
gift."
Naya was grateful when he held her close. He
was relaxed now. She knew that he would let her
keep the garland. "It is a wonderful gift," she
said, then hung her head and snuffled through her tears.
"It is just that it comes t-too Mate."
"For what?" pressed Demmi.
Torka spoke. His voice was low and solemn as
he explained how Naya had saved lana and her
baby, only to lose them for want of the very
healing leaves that Manaravak had just placed around her
neck. "We have suffered much sadness since the night
that the two of you disappeared into the storm. It is a good
thing that you have come home. It is a good thing to have something
to smile about!"
Demmi's head went high as, in a gesture of
goodwill that startled Naya, she reached out and laid
her hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "You need
weep no longer, Little Girl. The great mammoth
totem saved our lives. Life Giver led us to a
good land that lies to the south-a land of much meat ... a
land where the People will grow strong again and smile all the
time and where Medicine Woman will never want for the
healing leaves and roots that she seeks." She
paused and looked at Torka. "This is the gift that
we bring to you, my father."
"No." He shook his head. "Yow are the gift-you
and Manaravak. Come now. We will raise a feast
fire and sing songs of gladness. Demmi and
Manaravak have been reunited with their band. That is the
greatest gift of all!"
Larani smiled. She had ventured close enough to hear
but not close enough to be seen or drawn into the conversation.
Grek had accepted her excuses and had, at her
insistence, gone on ahead while she lingered
near their lean-to, ostensibly to comb her hair and
arrange her garments so that
an undue exposure of her scars would not put a
shadow upon the happy events of the day.
She had not combed her hair or rearranged her
clothing. Instead she had remained close to the
lean-to, staring spellbound at Manaravak, drinking
in the sight of him, fighting against the tears of gladness
that threatened to overwhelm her.
After all of these long months of thinking him dead, he
was alive!
Alive!
And now she continued to stare at him, loving him so much
that her throat burned against the need to call his name, and
her hands clenched against her desire to reach out to him
until, suddenly aware of her glance, he looked in
her direction. She caught her breath and turned
away lest he set eyes upon her when her heart was
open and vulnerable.
It took her only a few moments to return to the
shelter that she shared with Grek. By then she was weeping.
Manaravak was back among his people! Why had she
turned away from him? Because she was Grek's woman!
Grek's scarred, ugly, pitiable woman! By what
right did she allow herself to be overcome
by her love for a man who could never be hers, who would
never look at her without revulsion? Grek was her
man now. Grek needed her.
"Larani!"
She heard the old man call her name. By the time he
peered in and smiled at her and asked her to come out
to join the others, she had regained her composure.
She wiped her eyes and combed her hair, sweeping the
shafts sideways, grateful that the new growth was
at last long enough to allow her to bind the ends together with a
single length of braided sinew at her jawline. It
was an odd hairstyle, but it effectively covered
that portion of her scalp that would forever remain a shining
purplish cap of rumpled scars. When she emerged
into the light of day, she was red-eyed but no longer
tearful. She stood before Manaravak and welcomed
him and Demmi back into the ranks of their people in a
manner that was aloof enough to give the impression that she
did not really care whether they had lived or died.
There were singing and dancing in the encampment that day, and
although Manaravak and Demmi were saddened by news of the
death of lana and Eneela, their joy in being reunited
with their people assuaged their sorrow.
Surrounded by well-wishers, the brother and sister were
escorted to places of honor before a
hastily assembled feast fire. Manaravak knew
that he was grinning like a man who had drunk too
deeply of the juice of fermented blood and berries and
pounded roots. He did not care. He wondered if
he had ever been happier than he was at this
moment-Naya had smiled at his gift; he and
Umak were close once more.
The barking of the dogs had him on his feet again. They
had surrounded the colt. "No! Back! Away!"
he shouted as, wading through the confused but obedient
dogs, he took up the colt's tether and led it
into camp.
"Meat! At last! Good, red meat from an animal
fit for men to eat!" Simu exclaimed as he reached
for his butchering knife.
"No!" Manaravak raised a hand to stay the intent
of the other man. "This colt is better than meat to this
people."
Simu drew out his knife. "What is better than
the sweet meat of a young horse?"
Manaravak wound the end of the colt's tether around the
stake of the headman's lean-to, then returned to the
fire to stand proudly. "I bring this colt as a gift
for my people. It will grow strong and be all that the dogs have
become, only better because it will carry what
twenty dogs could not carry!"
This said, he seated himself between Torka and Umak and,
with a wide smile of brotherly affection at
Sayanah, asked, "What meat did you eat at the
Lake of Watered Blood?"
Sayanah grimaced. "You will taste it soon
enough!"
And it was so. Manaravak and Demmi marveled over
the
strange but pleasant taste of the meat and fat that their
people had carried away from the lake.
"The herds of these animals are enormous, and there
is enough fat on them to keep the lamps of our women
burning through a lifetime of winters!" Umak
exclaimed, his face alight. He then asked
Honee to bring out a sampling of the unusual skins that
she and the other women had been working on. "Look at
these pelts! Have you ever seen finer?"
Manaravak and Demmi were impressed as they handled
the unusual furs and hides of seals and walrus and
listened in amazement to the shaman's tales of the
animals that swam like fish, barked like dogs, and had
fins in place of feet.
"It is everything and more than your brother says," added
Torka, shaking his head and scowling. "I have
no wish to set eyes upon it again!"
"You will not have to!" Manaravak assured him,
focusing his gaze so completely upon Torka that he
failed to see Umak's glum expression. "The land
to the south is also full of meat and fat."
"And wanawut," added Demmi.
Silence fell.
Manaravak wondered why everyone was staring with horror
upon their faces. "We have never hunted in a land that was
free of wanawut," he reminded them.
"Except in the country around the Lake of Watered
Blood!" injected Umak with resentment.
Demmi was tired and happy. She had not meant
to cast a pall upon the festivities, but it seemed
less than honest not to speak of the wanawut or of the
incident in the cave.
"Then why would you and Manaravak lead us back into the
country where you have seen the beasts?" pressed Umak.
Simu cracked the marrow bone that he had been
gnawing on. "Why not? I would like a chance at them."
When Manaravak glared at Simu, a ripple of
sadness went through Demmi. Despite everything, a
part of him would always empathize with the wanawut. She
shook away the disturbing thought as she spoke to her people:
"Now that I have confronted the wanawut, I
can tell you that we have no cause to fear their land more
than we fear any other carnivore. Pierce their
flesh with a spear, and they bleed and
die as we would bleed and die. Life Giver will
protect us as we venture to the south."
Manaravak was nodding enthusiastically, but Umak,
shaking his head, apparently still longed to return to the
Lake of Watered Blood. Everyone else seemed
mollified, with the exception of Swan and Dak.
Neither had said more than a perfunctory word to Demmi
since she had returned to camp. Swan was more
quiet than usual, and Dak had not touched Demmi
or commented on her pregnancy.
Her eyes strayed to her son, who sat stiffly beside
his father on the man's side of the fire. How much he
had grown! She was so thrilled to see him, she was
neither annoyed nor angry with his refusal to display
any affection toward her.
"I will be a better mother to you from now on, Kharn,"
she had assured him.
He had looked at her through hostile eyes.
"Swan is my mother now!"
Regret touched her.
Later,
Demmi told herself.
Later Dak and I will be one! It will be as it was when
we were first together. I will tett him that I have been
foolish and inconsiderate. I will give him cause
to be glad that I have come home to him at last!
"I have heard enough of wanawut and new hunting grounds
and the Lake of Watered Blood," said Dak,
rising. "This day has been long. I will rest now.
Come, Kharn. It is time for us to sleep."
And so it was that "later" came for Demmi.
She kissed her mother and her sisters, and like an
obedient woman, she followed her man to his
lean-to, suppressing a smile when she thought of how
shocked everyone must be by her behavior.
When she paused before the shelter, Kharn was already
inside. Dak was looking past her. She turned.
Swan stood behind her.
"I am back from the far country, Sister," Demmi
said kindly. "I will care for my son and for my man.
There is no longer a need for you to help them."
Swan did not reply, nor did she walk away.
The look that passed between Swan and Dak struck
Demmi even more cruelly than Dak's words:
"I have grieved for you, Demmi," he said. "I could
not eat or sleep or care for our son because my spirit
bled for want of you. But time has passed
since you turned your back
upon
me and our son and chose to follow Manaravak. Now
I, too, have made a choice. I welcome you
back to your people and to my fire circle, but no longer
are you the center of my life. Swan is my woman
now-my caring and loving woman, a mother to Kharn, a
gracious maker of meat and fur and all the things that
make a man and a family strong."
Demmi did not speak. She stood tall and silent
before his every word. She wondered if he could hear her
heart breaking; the sound of its shattering was so terrible
to her own ears. At last he was finished. At last
a tearful Swan moved to stand close at his side and
offer apologies until Demmi could not bear to hear
another word. With an exhalation of remorse that shook
her to her spirit and beyond, she turned and would have walked
away, but Swan reached out and clutched her arm.
"Demmi, please try to understand!" Swan begged.
"I would never do anything to hurt you. You are still the first
woman of my man and the mother of his son! Tell her,
Dak!"
Dak hesitated, then he said coolly, "There will
always be a place for you in the light of my fire,
Demmi. Long ago, before our people, I named
you my woman. I have not forgotten my obligation."
Demmi shivered. "Obligation? Is this all that you
feel toward me?" She waited. In a moment he
would recant his statements and speak about the good times
they had shared.
But Dak said nothing.
"Dak, I am sorry for the way I behaved toward
you and Kharn. Something perverse in my nature
blinded me to everyone and everything but Manaravak. I
have changed. My heart is full of you, our son, and
our coming child-was Insight flared so brutally bright that she
nearly fainted as she whirled to face him.
"It is istours!" she declared. "Do you imagine that
I would come back into this encampment to shame you with my
brother's baby in me? Look at me, Dak! The
passing of the moons speaks to name this child yours!"
His eyes were distant, filled with hurt. "It would not
be the first time that you have shamed me with him."
Guilt twisted in her gut. She remembered the
cave, the savage coupling, the wolf and the man both
in the skin of her brother. Manaravak, both riding
her and hurting her, howling like an animal. The
memory sickened her. "Never again,"
she vowed. "You are the only man I want. I
love you, Dak. I have always loved you. I
just haven't known how much until now."
Swan hung her head in abject misery.
Dak stiffened. The ragged suck of air that hissed
inward through his teeth was the same sound that a man
makes when he has been dashed with ice water. The
exhalation that followed was just as cold. "Too late
. . . too late." He looked at Demmi out of
eyes that seemed more tired than before. "You do not look
well, Demmi. You should rest now. I think that we
have all had enough of words for one day."
Later, under the soft, dusky glow of a midnight
sun, Torka walked from camp alone. Lonit
watched him go. She had felt him rise but had not
said a word when he left. Only when his footfall
grew as soft as the midnight wind did she get
up, pull her sleeping furs around herself, and go
outside. Standing before the lean-to, she watched his
figure grow smaller and smaller as he walked
across the hills beneath the pale blues and pinks of a
night that held both sun and stars within it.
She knew where he was going. She knew what he would
do when he stopped. In silhouette against the
southwestern sky, he stood facing the mammoth-a
man and his totem etched against the infinite.
Her heart seemed to be beating in her
throat as she saw Torka raise his arms. Life
Giver lifted its trunk. Slowly, as though in a
strange and wondrous dream, man and mammoth
advanced toward one another until both paused.
Torka's arms lowered slightly. The trunk of the
mammoth reached out and touched the hands of the man.
A sob of joyful wonder escaped Lonit's
lips. She turned and reluctantly reentered the
lean-to. This moment belonged to Torka.
My man has found his luck again! The mammoth
walks with the People once more. My children have come back to me
from the world beyond this world! What more could this woman ask for?
She praised the forces of Creation for their goodness and
mercy, then with a contented sigh, she lay down and sought
sleep. Soon Torka returned and joined her, and
they slept deeply in the comforting embrace of one
another's arms.
No one in camp except the dogs and the colt heard
the sound that woke Manaravak and had him up, staring
toward the south. The wanawut were out there somewhere! For a
long time he listened to their calls, then he smiled.
Demmi would be pleased to know that for the first time in his
life, he felt no need to answer.

Naya, outside her man's lean-to,
knelt on her haunches before a square of sealskin,
busily sorting her newly acquired leaves and
roots and precious berries. This was the first time
since Manaravak had placed the garland around her
neck that she had been able to look closely at all
the treasures he had brought her.
Umak watched, unable to remember the last time he
had seen her so happy; his gift of the bearskin had not
pleased her half as much as Manaravak's garland.
With Honee and Li bending close, Naya babbled
on to them about the medicines that she would make and about the
many uses to which they would be put. She tasted a berry,
swallowed it, and then took up another and another,
chewing until she raised her smiling face toward the
pale light of the evening sun and closed her eyes.
For a long while she remained motionless, oblivious
to Honee's rambling conversation and to Li's
imperative tugging at her sleeve.
"Will you let me help to make medicine, Naya?"
asked Li.
Naya did not move.
Li made a face of impatience. "Naya! Did
you hear me, Naya?"
Naya remained perfectly still.
Disappointed, Li turned away, took
her doll from her pack roll, and not bothering to stifle
a yawn, plopped down and began to smooth the
doll's musk-ox hair.
Honee's chatter ceased as she appraised Naya
with motherly speculation. "Those berries always did
make her sleepy.
Come to think of it, I am sleepy myself. The day
has
been long. I think I will get some rest."
Umak ignored her. His thoughts were far away, back
to the Lake of Watered Blood, where Naya had
been his, and Manaravak had not been around
to distract her with presents that overshadowed the gifts
of her own man.
Frustration nagged him. His eyes took in Naya's
childlike beauty, the graceful arch of her back,
the pulsebeat at her throat, the curves of her
diminutive breasts as they rose and fell beneath her
lightweight traveling tunic, the way her hands were
stroking the curve of her thighs. He swallowed.
Something was infinitely sensual about the movement of her
hands and about the way she was now swaying slowly.
Umak looked to his back. Someone was watching him.
He was not surprised to see Manaravak, but his
lips tightened over his teeth when he
realized that Manaravak was not watching him, he was
watching Naya. The look on his face made
Umak think of a sexually alert stallion scenting the
air for a mare in heat.
Furious, Umak snapped to his feet, stared at
his twin, and shouted across the camp to warn him loudly and
aggressively. "Do not look at my woman like that,
Brother, or I will forget that I had rejoiced at your
return!"
The reaction in camp was instantaneous. The People
stopped what they were doing to stare at what promised
to be a confrontation.
Manaravak was startled. His eyes darted away from
Naya to settle upon his brother. There was no
apology in his expression; if anything, he looked
hurt and saddened. He frowned, shook his head, then
offered a wide, friendly, guileless grin that might not
have driven Umak to distraction had he not chosen
to look back at Naya and lick his lips like a
hungry wolf.
"I meant no offense, Brother," said Manaravak
earnestly.
A single breath of relief seemed to go out of the
entire band.
Umak commanded Naya to come with him. When she
did not react to his command, he stepped across
Honee's well-made cooking fire, reached down,
and hauled the granddaughter of Grek into his arms.
She gasped with surprise when he lifted her, then
giggled, burrowed her face into the hollow of his
shoulder, and seemed to fall asleep.
Holding his woman, he stood to his full height
and glared across the encampment. "It is a good thing that you
have returned to your people, Manaravak, but do not forget the
circumstances under which you left us! Naya is my
woman now! Do not look at her with hungry eyes
again!"
The strangest expression crossed Manaravak's
face-as though water rippled beneath his skin and clouds
rose within his spirit to shadow his eyes. But he said nothing
as Umak whirled around, ordered Honee to occupy
herself outside for a while, and then disappeared with Naya
into the shadowed privacy of their lean-to.
The People did their best to resume whatever they had been
doing before Umak's outburst. Torka saw Demmi
cast a disapproving glance at Manaravak as he
walked past her to seat himself glumly beside the colt
outside camp.
The old worry was back in Torka's gut-the
all-too-familiar frustration with decisions
badly made and difficult to live with. Nothing had
changed between Umak and Manaravak. Naya would be a
cause of enmity between them as long as she lived. He
ground his teeth. If only he had given her
to Manaravak, as had been originally intended! If
only he had listened to Simu and put her out of the
band!
. The word riled him, as did the realization that it was not
in his nature to condemn a young girl to certain death as
punishment for stupidity and flirtatiousness. Besides,
he was beginning to suspect that the problem lay less with
Naya than with his own sons. They were a stubborn
pair, and Naya was capable of sucking reason right out
of their heads. She had done nothing this day to spark
antagonism between them.
Uneasiness rippled through him. He had to admit that
there had been a certain sensuality to the arch of her
back and the way her hands had moved over her thighs,
which had drawn his own glance across the encampment. Perhaps
Simu had been right about her being a bringer of trouble.
She was, after all, Navahk's granddaughter as
well as Grek's. Perhaps, when all was said and done,
she could not be anything else. If this proved to be the
case . . .
"Who will be Manaravak's woman in this
camp now that Eneela and lana walk the wind forever?"
Lonit inquired, worrying aloud.
"Women!" Torka snapped at her, causing her
to wince. "Do you imagine that men have nothing on their
minds
except who will couple with whom? Until the younger
girls mature, Umak will share Honee with his
brother. And there is always Larani if
Manaravak's need is intense enough. Besides, she
is a good woman. were it not for her burns, he could
ask for no better mate."
Sadness touched Lonit"" face. "Larani
loves him, you know. But I do not think Manaravak
will want her now, even if Grek would consent to share
her."
Something ominous twisted deep within Torka as he
looked off toward Umak's shelter. "His
feelings toward Naya have become unnaturally
possessive. It is not a good thing. He has two
women. Manaravak has none. Like it or not, for the
good of the band, Umak may have to share Naya with his
brother."
Lonit's eyes grew large and watchful. "You were
never willing to share
me."
"It is not the same!" he said, but he knew that she
had spoken truly.
Memories settled. He chewed them resentfully,
wanting to spit them out and have done with them. How many
times had he fought for Lonit? Many times. And lost
only once-to Navahk.
The recollection of the man was disconcerting. Navahk
the Slaughterer . . . Navahk the Beautiful. .
. Navahk, Magic Man, father of Karana . .
. paternal grandfather of Naya . . . and raper of
Lonit. The ghost of that evil shaman haunted him,
whirling and mocking, dancing maniacally in the white
skins of winter-killed caribou with his black hair
whipping in the winds of time, his mouth set into a leering
smile that displayed the teeth of a wolf. . .
small, deadly sharp, serrate-edged teeth-not
unlike Naya's or Umak's.
No!
He opened his eyes and stared straight ahead. He
would not acknowledge the possibility of that ever again.
Umak was his son, not Navahk's. When he had
given Naya to Umak, it had not only been
to punish Manaravak for his animalistic
behavior-it had also been in the hope of silencing
all doubts of Umak's paternity forever.
Had he believed that Umak and Naya shared the same
grandfather, any union between them would have been strictly
forbidden. And yet when Umak took on the raiment
of a shaman, sang a shaman's songs, and danced a
shaman's dances, even though Torka told himself a
thousand times that the young man had inherited the ways of
the spirit master through his own line and through his own grandfather,
he could not help but think of Navahk and wonder if,
through some dark magic, Navahk had found a way to have
the last laugh.
"Torka?" Lonit was at his side, her hand on his
forearm, her head resting against the side of his shoulder.
"Talk to Manaravak. He looks so unhappy."
"What shall I tell him? That he must be content with
Honee and Larani while his brother keeps Naya
to himself?"
"You have given Naya to Umak, Torka. You must
make Manaravak understand. You are his father, the
headman. You will know the right words."
Torka shook his head. He would not allow the ghost of
Navahk to shadow his thoughts again, nor would he allow
a descendant of that hated man to come between his twins.
Naya would do as she was told or be put out of the band,
and once and for all his sons must be made to see
reason where she was concerned. "Manaravak
has come back to his people. He has brought Demmi
with him. The great mammoth has shown him its favor.
I cannot overlook these things. Nor can Umak. He
must be willing to yield on this matter of Naya now
that his brother has returned."
She looked at him in dismay. "Umak will not share
her, Torka!"
"No, not now, but in days to come, he will see that his
love is better placed in loyalty to a brother
than to such a silly, thin-brained creature as
Naya."
Lonit's expression changed as she chided gently,
"Torka, we have lived as man and woman for nearly
all our lives, but I tell you now that you are not the
man I think you are if you believe that either of our
twins has any interest in Naya's brains!"
"You are
my
woman.
Mine,
not his!" proclaimed Umak.
Naya stared up at him through the gloom of the lean-to.
"Yours," she echoed dully.
She was reaching up to him, moving sensually on the fur
and making soft purring sounds. If she was
afraid of him, she showed no sign of it at all as
she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as
she had never kissed him before.
Never before had she been eager to make love. She was
eager now. She took his breath away. With
impatient fingers she helped him undo the lacing of
her tunic, and with equally
impatient fingers she helped to free him of the
hindrance of his own clothes. She moaned when she
felt him naked against her, then gripped his shoulders
and pulled him close, moving her breasts back and
forth against his chest until her nipples peaked and
hardened. With a gasp of delight, she opened her mouth
to his, sought his tongue with her own even as she fought
against the weight of his body, not to be free of him but
so she might open her limbs wide.
Breathless and amazed, he responded to her kiss and
moved to accommodate her readiness. It was all he
could do to hold himself back lest he explode. The
last thing he wanted now was to inadvertently hurt her
and rouse fear in place of passion.
Her hands had found his organ. Such warm, moist,
little hands, stroking, working, leading him, placing him.
He could not keep himself from entering, slowly. The
sensation was so overwhelming that his eyes rolled
back in his head and he shivered with ecstasy. He would
have preferred to withdraw and slow the pace, but she sensed
his intention and would not allow it. With a ferocity that
stunned him, she curled her limbs around him,
locking her ankles tight across his lower back,
taking him deep. There was no holding back. When
climax came, it was so exquisite that he nearly
wept.
Pleasure swept Naya away on waves of
ecstasy until, as she trembled violently,
release came. Still the pleasure lingered. She was
too weak to sustain it. Her head was spinning. Her
body went limp as he slumped onto her.
"Naya . . . my Naya ..."
She frowned. Who was speaking? It did not matter.
His voice was deep, gentle, affectionate, and
satisfied with her. She felt so strange, so
light-headed and completely wonderful.
Slowly, her head began to clear. Strength was
returning to her body now, tingling beneath her skin and within
her loins.
"Umak?" Yes, it
was
Umak. His eyes were half closed.
He slipped his arms beneath her back and
rolled over, so she lay on top of him. With her
hands on his shoulders, she levered up and looked down
at him curiously out of the tangled, sweated masses
of her now unplaited hair. She cocked her head.
This was not at all like the dream. She liked this feeling
and wondered why she had ever feared him ... or
this.
"I love you, Naya," he told her. "We
are
one, you and I, as Torka and Lonit are one. So
it is with Umak and Naya, always and forever."
She was feeling very sleepy, infinitely content, and so
pleasantly warm. His hands were stroking her back.
She liked the sensation. It occurred to her that she
liked Umak. She closed her eyes, snuggled
close, and laid the side of her face against his
chest.
"Naya?"
"Yes?"
"Do you love me? Now, at last, do you love
me?"
Sleep was taking her, warm, black, dreamless
sleep. She yielded to it. But first she disyawned and
sighed a single word of acquiescence-to him or to the
welcoming oblivion of sleep, she was not
sure. "Yes," she said, and knew no more until
hours later, when a headache woke her.
From where he sat dozing beside the colt on the
peripheries of the temporary camp, Manaravak could
not have said what it was that woke him. He had not been
sleeping deeply. His father had come out to talk to him
after Umak's hot-tempered display. Torka's
well-meant advice had disturbed him. Bitterness
turned his mouth down. Once again he was a man without
a woman, and there was as much tension between Umak and him
as there had ever been.
"Only now it is
worse backslash
Umak flies into a rage when I even
look
at Naya." Manaravak scowled, annoyed with the
situation and with himself for having spoken out so loudly.
The colt moved closer, nudging his shoulder. He
glanced up and raised his hand to fondle the animal's
muzzle. A bond of affection and trust had
developed between them over their long journey. "It is
so among your kind, I know-always one stallion must have
all the mares. But, I ask you, are the People
horses? No. I do not want all my people's
women, just one-and not even all the time."
The colt blew moist, warm air through
Manaravak's fingers and shook its head as if in
admonishment. Manaravak looked up, met the
large round eyes, and nodded as his fingers rubbed the
short hairs of the colt's muzzle. "Yes, you know
my heart. Umak knows it, too. Perhaps better
than I know it myself! I did bring her a gift, and
I did make her smile, but I would not join with my
brother's woman unless he offered her to me. I would
not shame him or break with
the ways of my people again. I have learned to be a man,
not an animal. Sorry. I meant no insult.
You and your kind show more self-control in your herds
than I have ever shown in mine."
The colt nickered softly.
"Demmi warned me not to look at her,"
Manaravak told the young horse. "But how can a
man
not
look at Naya? The way she was sitting-it was as
if she was asking every man in the band to look and
to want!"
The colt shook its head, took a step forward, and
nearly knocked Manaravak over.
"All right! I will do as my father has
commanded. Until Umak offers to share Naya with me,
I will not even think of her-or of any woman! I have
had enough of them, anyway! Females twist a man's
head until he does not know which way it should be
facing!"
At that moment, across the encampment, Honee rolled
over just as Naya tried to step over her.
With a startled cry, the granddaughter of Grek went
stumbling forward. Naya was naked.
Manaravak stared. There was no way in this world or the
next that he could stop himself from looking at her . . .
even when Umak emerged from the lean-to and demanded that
he turn his eyes away.

The mammoth led them on slowly, ponderously, day
after day, until at last the barrens lay behind them
... as did the endless days of summer. The sun
rose and set over the mountains once again.
Now, in the soft glow of dawn, inner shadows made
the moment cold as Torka turned to face the bleak,
blue ice peaks of the eastern ranges and to survey
the camp in which he and his people had spent the night:
Everyone was up and preparing to travel on. The men and
boys were assembling sledges out of the same hides,
thongs, and long bones that had served to brace
the shelters of the night before. The
women and girls were preparing traveling packs and
meticulously picking through their fire pits for
leftover bone fragments, heating stones, and
unburned dung and tundral sod, which could be carried
to sustain a new fire at day's end. In front of
Umak's downed lean-to, while the shaman worked with
his son to assemble the family sledge, Naya was
busily helping Honee and Li load the pack
frames.
Torka appraised the young woman. Despite his
misgivings, Naya had been behaving-although she
occasionally giggled at inappropriate times and now and
then swung her hips in a way that invariably earned
an admonishing but loving slap on the rump from
Umak.
As for Manaravak, Torka was gratified to see that
he appeared to be going out of his way to make up
to Umak for past offenses. He avoided even the
most incidental contact with Naya. Now, as
Torka scanned the camp, he saw that Manaravak
was securing side packs to the colt. While
traveling, he spent most of his waking hours with the young
horse. When resting or in camp, he occupied himself
flaking and reflaking stone blanks
into innovative, elongated, bifacial-fluted
spearheads, which he had designed while in the far
country to the south.
Grek, his son's, and Simu were impressed with this
new style of projectile point. It pleased
Torka to see his old friend set aside his earlier
dislike of Manaravak. Torka's son appeared
to have left all wild, undisciplined behavior behind
him. For the first time in his life, Manaravak was
succeeding in his efforts to be one with his fellow
hunters. He was rarely alone. When Larani
brought food to Grek, she lingered to watch the stone
working. Torka's brow expanded as he remembered
Lonit's words:
"Larani loves him, you know. She always has."
He frowned, wondering if Grek were observant enough
to notice. For all the good it would do her! Torka's
frown deepened. He felt terrible whenever he
looked at her; he still held himself responsible for
her burns.
Now his eyes strayed toward Dak's fire
circle. The son of Simu had gone off to round up
his dogs while his women and Kharn loaded the
family sledge.
Demmi looked wan, and Torka worried
about her. She had changed so much since her return:
She avoided Manaravak and was quiet and obedient
to Dak's every command. Although the son of Simu was
civil to her, nothing cut through his aloofness. Nevertheless
she did her best to accept a
situation that she-and everyone else-knew that she had
brought upon herself. She showed no animosity toward
Swan. She assumed the role of the less favored
woman with calm dignity.
Torka shook his head. As her father, it hurt him
to see her in this situation.
"Dak, toss me that tether, and 111 give you a
hand. Snow Eater is leading the pups off again!"
Torka turned at the sound of Umak's voice.
The headman was not certain if Dak would respond
to Umak's offer; there had been a definite cooling
between them since Demmi and Manaravak's return.
Dak hesitated, but only for a moment. Before Dak
tossed Umak the tether and trotted off to give his
boyhood friend much-needed help, Torka saw Dak
staring toward Demmi with a pained longing that spoke of a
love that had never completely died.
Torka smiled. Soon his wild, willful, and
unpredictable second daughter was going to have another
chance at happiness! Torka felt
wonderful. The dawn was suddenly bright again, new
again, and his spirit was free of shadows again as he loped
off to help Umak and Dak round up the dogs.
The people walked on until they reached the Great Mad
River. They would have made camp in familiar
country, but Simu argued against it. "There are too
many memories in this country. Nantu died here. And
there we crossed the ice, and all but Eneela lived
to tell the tale." His eyes closed. He stood
awash in grief. "I say we walk just a little
farther south, to a part of the valley that does not have so
many ghosts."
Everyone agreed that Simu was right.
"I don't like ghosts," said Yona, falling into step
beside Larani as the band moved on.
"Nor do I," replied the daughter of Simu.
"But walk as we will, the kind of ghosts of whom
Simu speaks always follow. We carry them with us in
our heads . . . memories of all the things that we
have ever loved and lost."
Yona frowned. "I lost my mother and my dolls.
Naya killed my dolls, you know, just as she killed
my mother."
Larani stopped in her tracks. "You must not say
such a thing! Naya tried to save lana.
If she had possessed the right medicines, your mother
might still be alive. We cannot know. All of us must
die someday of something, Yona. There is no blame
to be fixed. It is simply the way things are."
"What other ghosts do you think about, Larani?"
"I think of my mother, Eneela, andofa pretty girl
whom the rest of the band left behind in the land that was consumed
by Daughter of the Sky. She would have had a fine
life. I liked her, and I miss her. I am
glad that her ghost fills my memories. And I
wish that she wafted here with you now instead of me."
Yona looked puzzled. "We left no one behind in
the burned land."
"Yes, we did."
"What was her name?"
"Larani."
The next day, at an assembly of the men and youths,
Grek drew the single long bone that elected him
to keep watch over the camp while Manaravak led
the rest of the band to the gorge at the base of Spear
Mountain.
"This is where I made my gift of many leaves for
Medicine Woman," declared Manaravak. "Plenty
of healing things are still here to keep the People strong!"
"It was so," Demmi affirmed with an edge
of weariness to her voice. The day had just begun, but the
previous night's rest had done little to soften the dark
shadows under her eyes or ease the pensive set of
her mouth. .
Simu turned his gaze to Umak, raised a
derogatory brow, and said loudly, "You disappoint
me, Shaman. If you hadn't been in such a hurry
to move off to the north, perhaps our women would not have run
out of healing leaves. Your Naya might have been able
to save lana, and we would have been reunited with your
brother and sister long before now."
Naya flushed, as did Umak, but it was Honee
who replied-and so furiously that her face turned
purple. "What is it, Simu, that twists your spirit
so? Before Manaravak was lost across the river, he could
do nothing right in your eyes! Now that he is back,
he can do no wrong! It is not enough for you to pick on
him and on Naya. You must pick on Umak as
well! But you go too far! I am Honee,
daughter of the great chief Cheanah and of generations of
headmen before him. No man insults
my
man!"
Umak grabbed Honee by the straps of her gathering
pack just in time to abort what might have
proved to be an effective charge against Simu.
"I do not need you to defend me!" he scolded
sharply.
Honee's eyes and mouth appeared to explode
outward as though about to fly right off her face. "No!
You do not! You are the shaman! Simu would be
well-advised to remember that . . . lest the spirits
who speak to Umak in the Seeing Wind decide
to make Simu pay!"
Something ugly contorted Simu's face. "Oh, I
will
remember," he replied with bitterly mocking
deference. "And I will tremble every time I think of it!
After all, with a shaman like Umak to intercede for a man
on behalf of the spirits, and a luck-bringing girl like
Naya to make the forces of Creation smile, how can
anything go wrong, eh? Unless we want to start
counting the dead and the injured and-was
"Simu!" Torka's warning was as dark and dangerous
as the deep-water currents that ran in the Great
Mad River at flood tide. "Let it rest!
And before you speak against Umak again, remember that still
led you eastward out of the valley. Honee says that
she does not know what twists your spirit, but I know.
Too long have we walked as brothers for me
not to see into your heart, Simu. Words against Naya
will not take away Larani's scars. By insulting and
impugning my sons, you cannot bring back your own! And
by creating dissension among this people, you cannot restore life
to Eneela."
Silence fell. Simu stared at Torka as though the
headman had struck him with a rock.
"Fix blame if it will ease you, old friend," said
Torka evenly. "Blame me, for surely I have
often blamed myself. Blame Naya, for she has
sometimes behaved foolishly and irresponsibly.
Blame my sons, for neither one is perfect. But
who is? Are
you?
I think not. So blame who you will, but know now, once
and for all, that I will not let you tear my people apart!"
Torka's tone softened. "Come now, old friend! The
day is young. The sun is rising in a cloudless sky.
The wind is a strong, blackfly-eating wind! There
are stones to be gathered on Spear Mountain, and
leaves and berries to be picked! The mammoth
walks before us! Good hunting grounds lie ahead.
What more could a man desire? Walk with your woman
Summer Moon and with your newborn son and be
grateful for what you
have
even if you cannot forget what you have
lost backslash
What has been done cannot be undone. Let us learn
from our mistakes and get on with our lives!"
The wind blew out of the southern ranges, redolent of
artemisia and distant steppelands, of forests of
spruce and
tamarack, and of groves of willow and cottonwood
in which the leaves had already begun to turn gold. As
Manaravak stopped on the loose scree of the
south-facing ridge of Spear Mountain, he knew that
he was scenting the good, rich smell of the hunting
grounds that he and Demmi had discovered beyond the far
ranges. It was a good scent, filled with promise
of new and better days to come.
And yet the hackles rose on the back of his neck
because there was another scent on the wind; it was so
subtle only he and the dogs smelled it: the scent
of something alive-of flesh and blood and fur.
"What is the matter, Manaravak?" asked
Sayanah, clambering over the loose stones to join
his brother and Jhon, and the sons of Grek..
"Nothing," Manaravak lied.
The scent was all around him. The dogs were
worrying over it, circling and sniffing. Lower upon the
ridge, Dak and Simu had raised their heads into the
wind.
"What is it?" asked Simu.
"Can you make it out, Manaravak?" Dak called.
"No." Another lie. It was the wanawut. He was
a man of the People at last and wanted no part of the
wanawut now. But if the other hunters knew that the
beasts were near, they would insist upon stalking the
wanawut and killing them. As always, the thought upset
him.
The distant scent was distressing the dogs.
"Something's out there!" exclaimed Jhon with
excitement.
Manaravak eyed Umak's son; he would not be
easy to deceive.
"Torka says that we will hunt tomorrow!" informed
Sayanah. "Whatever is riling the dogs had
better be wary of us!"
Manaravak raised a brow. "The provisions from the
Lake of Watered Blood have not run out."
"No," agreed Sayanah. "But Simu does not
like that meat, and Torka has been keeping an eye out
for signs of game."
Tankh took the posture of a spearman
about to be attacked and, using an imaginary spear,
pretended to be killing something. "The animal I
want is big and hairy and walks like a man. It
will die in fear of me when I loll it with my new
spear."
"No more!" Manaravak snatched the son of Grek
by the front of his tunic. "Do not even think it. If
the life spirits of the game will honor us by coming forth to die
upon our spears, those spirits will be moose, elk,
bison, and caribou.
But never
is
any spear of mine, or of my design, to be used
against wanawut." Manaravak pushed Tankh
away, and as the boy gasped for air, he added
sternly, "A man of the People I am, but I have been
one with the wanawut and will not raise a spear against them
any more than I would against any of you."
"Not
ever?"
Sayanah pressed him.
Manaravak looked down at his younger brother.
Memories, confusing and conflicting, were strong in him.
He shook them away. "Not ever," he said.
11
The sun set, and darkness enveloped the encampment.
As Honee, Naya, and Li worked together to transform
Umak into the shaman, he found it difficult to stand
still. Torka had asked him to make an especially
fine show this night, and his females were outdoing themselves.
"There is much to be grateful for!" exclaimed
Honee, daubing the tip of the little finger of her right hand
into the black colorant that Li held up to her on
a plate made of an antelope pelvis. The
paint was a mixture of finely ground ashes thinned
to a paste in hot water within which clean parings taken from
the underside of a sealskin had been simmered. The
resulting colorant went on smooth and thick.
"The mammoth totem is leading us again, and-if we
are to believe Demmi and Manaravak-we are going
to the finest hunting grounds that any of us have ever seen!"
Umak exhaled a blast of impatience. "We should
go back to the Lake of Watered Blood instead. It
is an offense to the forces of Creation to abandon a
camp in which there was so much food at hand."
Honee frowned. "You had no vision from the Seeing
Wind to tell you that the People must stay."
"No, I did not. Perhaps I should have made one
up!"
"A shaman does not lie!" reminded the
woman, annoyed.
"Yes, Honee, yes!" Umak cut her
off
impatiently. "But Simu is right about this country.
There are too many ghosts
in it. He is not the only one to be ill at ease
with them. I, too, feel their presence and chafe against
it."
Honee made a face. "Manaravak does not
chafe! Manaravak does not worry over ghosts!
Manaravak has returned from the world beyond this world and
has caused the People to fear that Umak's power has
failed him! You must show them that this is not true."
"If the People want to name my brother Shaman, let
them do so!"
"There is no need," said Naya softly. She
knelt to Umak's right, festooning his ankle with a
thong of feathers and small, polished bones that would
click and rattle when he danced. "I will help my
shaman make a special magic for
all
the People so not even Simu will have cause to question my
man's powers."
"I do not care what Simu thinks of me!"
"But you must!" declared Naya. "Grandmother
Wallah used to tell me that for a medicine to work, the
People must have faith in its magic!"
"You speak wisdom, my dear girl!" Honee
said, then turned to Umak. "Naya is right.
Simu's doubts and fears can eat away at the
faith of the People until there will be no magic left for
any of us!"
Umak looked at Naya. "And how can the
granddaughter of Grek restore Simu's faith in
Umak's magic when Umak himself has been unable
to do so?" he asked politely.
Naya hesitated for a moment. "This woman can make
a drink that will cause the People to forget their fears while
their bellies grow warm within the cold night and their
spirits smile as they fly away across the world and back
again at Umak's command." She stopped speaking. Their
faces had gone blank. "It is true! I can do
this for my shaman!"
Honee looked at Umak. Umak looked at
Honee.
Li looked at them all and said quietly, "I do
not want my spirit to fly across the world and back again."
"No, dear, nor would any of us," said Honee.
Naya felt insulted. "You
would
come back. I have come back safely many times."
"Of course, dear girl," Honee patronized.
"But we are wasting time. There are still more feathers and
bones to string."
"You don't believe me!"
"I ... well . . . come, Naya, give this
woman a useful hand now."
"No," Umak said, touched by the expression of hurt
upon Naya's face. He rested his hand lovingly upon
her head. "Honee and Li will assist me here.
Mix leaves and lichens, mosses and berries if it
will please you. What harm can it do?"
The women raised the communal fire high. The People
ate, but the shaman fasted. Apart from the other members
of the band, Umak stood with his arms raised to the night
and his spirit open to the Seeing Wind. Salivating, he
was painfully aware that his conjuring was no more than the
wishful thinking of a man who had not eaten since
midday. With a sigh, he knew full well that he
would not eat until his performance was done, and so he
came forth to dance before the flames.
He chanted. He whirled. He sang the history
of the People, while Naya, Honee, and Li
circulated among the gathering with bladder flasks of the
ceremonial brew that the granddaughter of
Grek had prepared in haste but in generous portions.
All drank. All exclaimed of its
excellence-except Larani. She took one sip.
Visibly startled, she quickly handed back the flask
and would have spoken, but Naya turned and stepped
dancingly away to offer the flask to Summer Moon.
By then the three females who resided at the
shaman's fire circle had passed the flasks
to everyone except Umak and the dogs.
The shaman was not certain when things began to go wrong.
He sensed an immediate change in those who were watching his
performance: The younger children became drowsier until,
yawning and giggling happily, they curled up and
fell asleep. The day had been long, so Umak
would not have counted this as unusual had it not been for the
disconcerting way in which their parents were observing him out
of fixed, unblinking eyes. A few moments later,
Jhon sat bolt upright, clasped his hands to his
mouth, and ran from the gathering to become violently
sick.
Honee watched him out of lackluster eyes and
tittered after him almost malevolently. "Mustn't
bolt your food. . . . Mother's warned you many times.
Cough it up! Serves you right!"
Umak frowned. In the past, Honee had
often warned the boy to eat more slowly, but it was not like
her to take even the most trivial complaints of her
children lightly. Yet when
Jhon came swaying back to the fire, his
summer-browned face as pale as chalk, she
tittered again and chastised him while offering another
pull on one of the bladder flasks.
"Ugh!" He waved it away. "It makes me
sick!" Seated cross-legged and shivering with
revulsion beside Sayanah, he rubbed his temples as
though to be rid of a headache while Sayanah
greedily accepted the bladder from Honee and took a
deep pull.
In the red, flickering glow of the fire, Umak saw
his young brother grow wide-eyed with amazement and. then,
with a beatific smile on his face, swoon into a
dead faint.
Umak waited for Torka to rise and see if
Sayanah was all right, but Torka did not move.
"Dance, my son! Why do you stop?" asked
Torka, his words oddly slurred.
What
had
Naya put in her ceremonial brew? Umak
wondered. She had said that she could make the
spirits of men fly away, and so she had! The realization
was upsetting. Demmi sighed sleepily, then
suddenly laughed out loud as she pointed a finger at
him, and every conscious pair of eyes in the band followed
her finger, and everyone who was not in a stupor laughed as
though at the funniest joke in all the world.
Umak was annoyed and disconcerted. He altered his
dance, wondering what he was doing wrong and why he had
become an object of amusement.
Suddenly, with her baby asleep in her back
carrier, Summer Moon was on her feet, dancing
with him, mimicking his steps. When he told her
to sit down before she angered the spirits and woke her little
one, she smiled blankly at him and shushed him.
Before he knew what was happening, Swan, Honee,
and Lonit had joined her.
Umak stopped. The women kept on dancing. It was
not his dance now; it was theirs. They were holding hands and
sidestepping around the fire. All were smiling,
suppressing laughter, looking at one another as
though sharing some wonderful jest at his expense.
Honee called to Naya, and the granddaughter of
Grek joined the circle. Umak knew that she was as
intoxicated as any of them. Larani, sober, stayed
away from the dancing, as did Demmi, who
was sound asleep.
Umak turned from the women's side of the fire. The
men of the band had begun to clap their hands in a sure,
slow, steady rhythm.
"Women, you move like
plaku
dancers!" exclaimed Simu.
The words brought a sensual laugh from Summer Moon
as, pausing before her man, she reached up and loosed the
thongs that held her braids. When her hair fell
loose, she shook her head, and beneath the fall of her
tunic, her breasts shook as well. Her movement
was so sexually provocative and out of character that Umak
stared like a gape-mouthed boy as her baby began
to cry.
Simu cheered, quickening the pace of his clapping.
"Plaku!"
he called out. "Would you be willing, Summer
Moon? Would any of the women of this band be willing?
After all that we have endured, where's the harm, eh?"
There was fire in his question, and a deep, hungry,
sexual excitement.
Umak was stunned. Performed in the land of their
ancestors and wisely forbidden by Torka, the
plaku
was a ritual dance that ended in savagely erotic
couplings. Was Simu seriously calling for the women
of the band to strip off their garments and dance naked before their
men until, at last, tradition commanded each woman
to join for a single night of pleasure with a partner other
than her own mate?
"No!" Panic broke loose within his veins. On
a night of
plaku,
Naya would dance naked, but she would not dance for him.
She would dance for Manaravak. He knew it. He
felt it in his bones and blood and heart. His brother
would have her, after all.
He looked directly at Manaravak now, standing
tall and watchful behind Torka. His long lids were
lowered in speculation. He was like a wolf as he
looked across the fire at Naya.
"Never!" Umak raged the word and tore his eyes from
Manaravak to stare at his father imploringly.
"Torka, you must tell Simu that what he suggests
is impossible. For the good of the band, you have wisely
forbidden the ritual of
plaku.
Torka, what are you doing?"
The headman struggled to his feet. At
last he managed to stand upright, to steady himself, and
to focus his eyes.
"Plaku?"
He spoke the word as though unsure of it.
Umak felt sick. His father had drunk much too
deeply of Naya's magic drink. He looked
around. With the exception of Larani and the colt tethered
nearby, everyone was drunk- including the dogs,
since the boys had seen fit to feed them meat soaked
in Naya's special brew. A terrible, sinking
feeling settled in his gut.
"Be STILL-ILL, Shaman!" demanded Torka. "I
am headman! I say what is done or not done in
this band!"
"But, my father, the
plaku
ceremony, it is not-was "Be still, I say! I have
no stomach for the ways of rude sons or for rude
shamans or for
plaku
cere . . . ceremo . . . ceremonies. But if
each woman feels now like dancing for her
own
man, I could not say that it would not be a good thing."
And so it was that each woman of Torka's
band danced for her man. They danced naked in the light
of a fire that the men were too drunk to tend. They
danced, and the men sang, and the colt whinnied nervously
as dogs, bleary-eyed with an excess of Naya's
brew, howled off-key . . . and did not hear something
else howling-far away but not so far that Larani, who
had taken Summer Moon's infant from that woman,
did not stiffen and stare and try to make the others take
notice.
It was no use. No one cared. The dancing was too
intense. The sound that she heard-or thought she heard-
was too fleeting. Besides, stalking animals made
no noise. If they did, they would never eat.
Larani relaxed and rocked Summer Moon's
infant. The night was fine and cool, with the wind feeding
life into the fire's embers. Ousting as it was, she
could not bring herself to venture near to the fire, and so she
sat apart, to the lee of a grouping of large boulders that
allowed her a view of the dancing.
She imagined how it would be if she were one of them-
naked, beautiful in the firelight, desired by her
man. She smiled tenderly. Old Grek was
asleep with the children. She was not sorry. Such a night
as this would be too much for him. Tomorrow she would tell him
how it had been between them, and she would make
things up that would cause him to smile proudly and
believe that he was still as much a man as he had ever
been.
She sighed. The women circled the fire again and again,
facing their men, then turning away, sliding their feet
slowly to the side, allowing the firelight
to penetrate between their thighs as they raised their arms and
displayed their breasts and rolled their hips while their
men pounded out a quickening rhythm with the clap of their hands
and the beat of their palms upon their thighs. Larani
envied them.
The men were rising now. One by one they were
undressing-even Umak. He was not drunk on
Naya's brew but on the sight of the young woman.
Honee was dancing by herself. Larani caught her
breath. Umak was naked now. How fine he was.
How fine they all were. How powerful and ready
to fill their women as they faced their partners and took
up their part in a dance that was not really a dance at
all.
Her face flushed. She saw Torka extend his
hands to Lonit. Simu was gesturing to Summer
Moon in a way that set Larani's pulse
throbbing. Dak stood looking first toward the sleeping
Demmi and then, with a snap of his head, he
aggressively placed his hands upon Swan's hips
and took her down, ending her dance and beginning a new
one then and there. Larani's face was burning now.
Manaravak was standing alone. He had no partner. His
eyes were on Umak.
Manaravak!
How she longed to dance for him ... to touch him ...
to open herself to him, body and spirit ... to tell him that
he need never be alone, that she would be his, all that
he would ever need or desire, more woman than he
could imagine if he would only . . . Only what?
The bitterness that she felt at this moment was
appalling. She was certain that he would lie with
Honee before he would so much as look at her. When
Yona, Li, or Uni matured, he would name one
of them as his own. She would stand aside, watching him
pass, knowing that he would not even look her way, let
alone see the love in her eyes, as he eagerly
claimed his new woman.
Larani suddenly regretted not having drunk her
share of the ceremonial brew. It would have been good
to face this night without pain. She stared at the
dancers. Naya was moving dreamily before Umak,
working her hips for him, performing the sex act with an
invisible partner for him, arousing him, inviting
him . . . and Manaravak.
Larani went cold.
Stupid girl,
she thought.
Stupid, mindless girl! Have you learned nothing?
She stared ahead, unable to look away as Naya
danced before the twins. Honee circled the threesome,
giggling until Larani longed to trip her, take
her place, and lead Manaravak away from Naya's
dangerous, mindless game. She trembled with wanting
until the specter of herself dancing naked with her
scarred face and arm and back made her catch her
breath in misery.
As Larani watched, Naya fell to the ground and
writhed
on her back. With her limbs parted and bent at the
knees, she arched her hips, held herself open, and
began to move-to dance-all the while reaching toward the
brothers who stood above her, beckoning them down,
inviting them to share her dance. As Larani watched in
horror, Manaravak snarled with sudden viciousness
and without warning pushed Umak away. He fell upon
Naya, gripped her flanks, andwitha single thrust
penetrated deeply.
"Yes!" Naya cried.
But at that very moment Umak charged Manaravak from
behind.
Larani hung her head and walked to the other side
of the boulders. She did not want to see any more.
She did not want to see Manaravak taking another
woman.
Yet, with the sound of the dancers pounding in her ears, a
fierce rebelliousness rose in her. Why should she not
take part in this night of celebration? With old
Grek in a stupor, who would know or care whether she
danced or not? Who would see unless she let them
see? Only the dogs. Only the wind. Only the
uncounted and uncountable star eyes of Father Above! And
he would not care if she danced. The sight of her could
not possibly offend him. He and his daughter had
made her what she was. Let them watch! Let
Daughter of the Sky turn away in shame to see
what she had done to a child of the earth who had never done
her any harm! Let Father Above marvel at how much
of a woman Larani still was.
And so, after setting the baby gently down into a
sheltering crevice between two boulders, she stripped
off her tunic. With the wind in her hair and the cool,
starlit darkness caressing every curve of her body,
Larani danced. She whirled. With tears of
defiance shining in her eyes, she cupped her breasts
and raised them to the night. They were beautiful . . .
her body was beautiful ... as she had once been
beautiful. Once, but no more.
And so she danced alone and cursed the forces of
Creation for maiming her, and Simu for not killing her
when he had had the chance.
Manaravak's blood was spattered across Naya's
face and body.
"What has happened here?" Torka demanded of
Umak. "Why have you raised your hand against your
brother?"
"I swore that I would kill him if he touched her,
and by all the powers in this world and the next now I will do just
that!"
Manaravak staggered to his feet. Blood ran from
his broken nose and turned his fingers and the back of his
hand black in the moonlight. "She invited it."
Manaravak's words were tight with pain. The hostility
in his eyes was terrible to behold.
But not half as terrible as the anger on Torka's
face. "Enough!" Torka was adamant. "No son
of mine will ever again raise his hand against his brother!"
"Then tell Manaravak to stay away from my
woman."
"You have two!" Manaravak retorted.
"No longer!" declared Torka. "Get up,
Naya."
Naya laughed. Umak reached to clasp her wrists
and yank her to her feet.
"I have had enough of this endless bickering over the
granddaughter of Grek!" the headman erupted.
"By the forces of Creation, Umak, share the stupid,
troublemaking creature and let me hear no more about
it-or I swear to you, Naya will walk the wind
forever!"
"No!" Umak raged.
Torka fixed Naya with a look of dislike that withered
her on the spot. "I had hoped that you had changed,
but you play my sons against one another as though they were
a game. Because of your medicine drink, there has been
a madness on my people tonight. I must think long and hard
about this, Naya. But now my head throbs, my gut
is heavy, and my body aches for want of sleep.
I suggest that you and my sons seek sleep apart from
one another so that you may think about what I have said.
I will not warn you again."
The wanawut came while the band slept in a
drunken stupor. Not even the dogs sensed their
presence until it was too late.
Larani heard Life Giver trumpet in the
hills to the east. She raised her head in time to see
manlike shapes moving past the boulders in which she
and the baby had been sleeping. The creatures moved
as though in a dream-massive beasts, knee-deep in
ground fog, ambling forward with their backs hunched.
She caught her breath in horror. Never had she
been so close to wanawut. There were five of them,
each nearly as big and furred as a bear, except
for the one female among them. Noticeably
pregnant, the creature was taller than Larani,
and its bone structure and musculature were
massive, revealing the potential of inordinate
physical strength and endurance. Like its male
counterparts, the female moved with knees bent and its
short, stubby limbs bowed outward. Its arms were
longer than its legs-so long, in fact, that although the
animal stood more or less upright, it was able
to knuckle the ground as it walked. A thick coat
of stringy, mouse-brown hair covered every inch of its
body except for the end of its bearlike snout, its
disturbingly human-looking ears, the palms of its
hands, and the two spatulate breasts that swung like a
pair of dark, distended, overused bladder flasks.
Larani was sickened by the sight of the female
thing and terrified by the muscular power of the other, larger
animals that walked with it. They were moving toward the
encampment of her people! They were advancing in the way of
hunters-slowly, methodically, rousing no sound that
might betray their presence to their unwary prey.
Her heart was pounding. Why didn't the dogs bark?
She suddenly remembered that they were as sotted as her
people. The only sober man in the entire camp was
Umak, but after his earlier confrontation with Manaravak
and Torka, she suspected that he might well have
turned to drink in order to
be able to sleep. If he had, who would sound alarm?
What would happen if no one did? The answer was
clear and irrefutable. still
must warn them! 1 am the only one who can! But if
I cry out, who except the wanawut will hear me?
Within the fold of Larani's arm, the baby began
to squirm and fuss. In a near panic, she quickly
offered a fingertip to the hungry infant,
effectively silencing it. This baby, hungering for the
milk of Summer Moon, would not long be satisfied
to suck upon the thin, dry finger. In a moment it would
begin to fuss again, and the wanawut would hear.
Her right hand slowly took up the skinning dagger that
she had placed upon the stones next to where she
had been sleeping. With it curled in her fist, she
stood to her full height. For the sake of the infant,
for her people, and for Manaravak, who lay asleep within the
encampment and unaware of danger, Larani knew
what she must do.
There was no time to waste. With a deep intake of breath
to steady her nerves and strengthen her resolve, she
slung off her dress. The cold struck at her
skin, and her senses screamed in protest. She
ignored them. Deftly, she wrapped the infant in
her garment to muffle its cries as she bent to place
the child within a protective crevice deep within the
boulders.
Be safe little one,
she thought.
Be silent! If the forces of Creation are with us
both, 1 will soon bring your mother back to feed you!
She did not wait to discover whether the infant would be
still or not. With her dagger in hand, Larani raced
naked into danger.
"Wanawut!"
She screamed the word again and again-a strident warning
to her people that also called the attention of the wanawut
to herself.
As the beasts turned, Larani thought that she
would collapse with terror, but she did not. She
displayed herself for them. She waved her arms and danced
in great leaping strides, which took her away from the
baby and farther still from any possible help from the band.
"Come! Feed upon this woman if you hunger for the flesh
of my kind this night! Ugly as you are, you should find
me perfect for your tastes! Follow me! Catch
me if you can!"
They stood dead still in the wind, watching her, listening
to her taunts, weighing her value as meat. The
largest animal stood erect. Every silver-tipped
hair on its back was up. With a low huff of disdain
and an enraged beating of fists against its
massive chest, its lips curled back to show its
teeth. Once again, Larani nearly fainted with
terror. The wanawut had the teeth of a lion, and as
one of its fists opened she saw that its hands were as
big as the paws of a bear, and as clawed. She saw
her fate glinting in the carnivore's gray eyes.
In comparison, the burning hands of Daughter of the
Sky seemed merciful.
"No ..." Her mouth went dry. She was shaking so
violently that her teeth chattered. "No! I will not
stand here and wait for you. Come! All of you! Follow
me, I say."
As Larani whirled around and began to race screaming
toward the river, the female and two of the males
took after her. But two others, including the huge
silver-backed male, turned and headed straight for the
encampment of the P.
"Torka! Wake up, Torka!"
Torka groaned at the sound of Lonit's voice.
His head felt so heavy that he did not want to lift
it from his bed furs.
Lonit was sitting up beside him, refusing to allow him
to go back to sleep. There was an imperative
quality to her voice that could not be denied. "Listen!"
Fighting against nausea, he sat up, holding his
head and pressing in against his temples lest they
explode. He listened and heard the sound of a woman
screaming and the whinnying of the colt.
Torka was on his feet in an instant. Dizziness
struck him, and he fell. Disoriented, he shook his
head. Pain flared. It was all he could do to keep from
vomiting. Cursing Naya and her foul drink, he
forced himself to rise. He was nearly sick again as,
moving across the darkness of their hut, he waved the
door skin aside and stepped out into the predawn
darkness. When the cold air touched his skin, it
seemed to turn him inside out.
"Torka! Your spears!" Lonit called after him.
But he was on his knees, too violently,
gut-wrenchingly sick to answer.
Larani's screams brought Demmi out of her
drug-induced dreams. The screams were growing farther
and farther away. Not so the frantic whinnying of
Manaravak's colt or the sound of a man being
sick.
Seated next to the lifeless rubble of the feast fire,
Demmi felt unfocused. Who was sick? Had the
screams been real?
Half-asleep, she raised her head and found herself
facing two wanawut. Instinctively, her hand
reached for a weapon, then froze. She had not brought
her bola or even her skinning knife to the previous
night's festivities.
The animal directly in front of her was the big
silver-backed male that she had seen in the cave.
Another, darker-furred male was leaning around her,
scenting along the line of her hips, plucking at her
tunic with curious fingers, and pinching her skin along
with it.
"Ouch!" she cried, and silently cursed herself for
lack of control. Almost instantaneously, the
silver-backed beast furiously shoved the
other wanawut away. The animal allowed itself to be
pushed, but not before baring its teeth and issuing a roar of
defiance-the sort that Demmi had heard many a
predator make when being driven back from a
potential meal by a dominant animal. The silver
back responded with a roar of its own. She caught
the hot scent of its breath and was nearly sick with
dread.
"Demmi, do not move! They mean you no harm,
Sister!"
Manaravak's command came from somewhere to her left.
She was so paralyzed by fear that she could not have moved if
she tried. Could he believe what he was saying? Was
there a chance that he could possibly be right?
"Mother?" Kharn's query was a tremulous peep.
Her heart stopped.
Roused by the roar of the beast, Kharn looked up from where
he had been sleeping with the other boys and stared across the
fire toward her. Fear ebbed from Demmi as her
maternal instincts came to the fore. Her son had
called her Mother for the first time!
Demmi's eyes met Kharn's, then looked away
lest the wanawut be drawn to him by following her line
of sight. When she spoke, her voice was
completely under control. "Do not say
another word, my son. Breathe softly . . .
slowly now . . . and begin to back away. ..."
Her warning was cut short. The silver back leaned
in close and screeched at her.
She cowered before his appalling power. There was only one
thing on her mind now: survival for herself, her
unborn child, and her son.
Where was Dak? Where was everybody? Had the adults
retired to their pit huts and left her alone with the
children? Could Naya's ceremonial drink have made them
so irresponsible? Demmi was suddenly cold as she
realized that the
wanawut had evidently overlooked the sleeping children
as they came stalking into the dark, unguarded camp.
But if Manaravak was awake, then the other members
of the band were probably awake, too! In a moment
spears would fly, bolas would whir, the beasts would
fall dead, and everything would be all right again. But no
spears flew. No bolas whirred. Demmi
realized that the dogs were not barking. Perhaps Naya's
brew was not meant for dogs, and they would never wake
up again.
Still curled submissively before the beast, the woman
fought desperately against panic. The silver back
was sniffing at her back, shoulders, and
sides in quick, excited sucks of air. It was all
she could do to keep from screaming as its hands began a
hurtful exploration. She realized with horror that it
was determining her gender.
Distracted by the frenzied sounds of the horse, the
silver back twisted its upper body to stare in the
colt's direction- the same direction from which
Manaravak had called. At that moment hope
shriveled and died within her; Manaravak, she
realized, had gone to calm the horse rather than lift
a spear against the wanawut threatening his sister and the
band's children.
Slowly she raised and turned her head to see
Manaravak poised halfway between his lean-to and the
colt. Even in the predawn darkness she could see his
indescribable confusion. The world seemed suddenly
to sink beneath her. Manaravak could not make up his
mind!
"Manaravak!" A sob broke out of her. "Why do
you wait? Throw your spears! Or are you truly one
of them, after all?"
Her cry had won the full attention of the beast. She
stared straight into the familiar face. Demmi had
seen it before-in the fog, in the cave, and in countless
nightmares. The cold, gray eyes
narrowed. The brow wrinkled. The lip seams rolled
away from its teeth. The shaggy, grizzled mane
bristled along its upper back and shoulders.
"Get back! Get away from me!"
The beast sucked in its breath in obvious
surprise. It cocked its head. And then it uttered
a series of low, dangerous growls. Demmi saw
recognition in its eyes. The wanawut knew her!
The beast remembered her words and what she had done!
She had killed its mate, and now, in this moment,
Demmi knew that she, too, was going to die.
"Dak!" She screamed the name of her man even though
she knew that no man could help her now. Her
control shattered. "Run, Kharn!" she screamed.
"Wake up, children! Run! Run for your life!"
With the ferocity of a cornered animal, Demmi
grabbed one of the hairy hands of the wanawut. Shaking
her head like a badger burrowing for a vein, she bit
through fur and skin and muscle until her teeth
struck bone. The wanawut, startled, grabbed her
by her head with its free hand and tried to pull her
away. She would not be pulled. Claws pierced her
brow and raked back along her skull, scalping
her, but still she savaged the hand of the beast, ripping
flesh arid tendon until, with an outraged
shriek of pain, the wanawut raised its arm so
quickly that she was pulled straight off the ground. And still
she held on, biting deeper and harder until the
wanawut flung its arm sideways with such force that
Demmi was hurled across the encampment.
In shock, with her own blood in her eyes and the flesh
and fur of the beast still in her mouth, the pregnant
woman landed hard on her back. Stunned, the breath
went out of her as she heard her spine snap and her
skull crack. Light and sound exploded within her
head as a single word rang out.
"Demmi!"
It was Dak. She knew his voice. He was calling
her name. She tried to answer but could not. She felt
strangely cut loose from her body. Light was
fading, and all sounds, external and internal, were
rushing inward to po'ol within her shattered skull as the
last, lingering remnants of Dak's voice cracked
and fell into the blood-filled ruin of her brain like
pieces of clear ice falling before a darkening sun that
would radiate heat and light no more.
"No!" Manaravak hurled his spear. Even as it
left his hand he knew that it was wide of its target,
and even if it had struck true, he was too late
to save his sister.
The silver back was already down with Dak's spear in
its back. The other wanawut was racing off, bounding
with a speed that surprised those who leaped out of its
way. Now the encampment dissolved into confusion as Uni
and the boys scattered from the fire. Old Grek sat
up, bleary-eyed and uncomprehending, with Tankh and
Chuk clutching at his armpits and trying to drag him
away.
The silver back, up again, was reaching around, grabbing
at the spear that had pierced its upper back. As it
turned, it spotted Grek and his sons.
Manaravak's eyes refused to focus properly.
Was the residue of Naya's drink blinding him, or
was it his tears? If Demmi was dead, it was his
fault! She had called for his help, and he had
hesitated. No! He had done worse than that-he
had known that the beasts were close to the encampment, but
worried more about them than the safety of his people, he had
said nothing! He had allowed himself and every man,
woman, and child in the band to become intoxicated and
vulnerable to their predations. And after the wanawut had
entered the encampment and his sister had cried out to him,
he had been unable to place his loyalty.
"Manaravak! What is wrong with you? Move!"
He was shocked by Lonit's command and by the
ferociousness of her expression. She had just seen one
of her daughters killed while her son had stood
by and done nothing. While the wanawut towered over
Grek and his sons, Torka was swaying on his
feet. He had his spears in hand, but he looked
sick and old and disoriented. The previous night of
drinking had affected him badly. Manaravak was
stunned by the sight. For the first time in his life, the young
man realized that the calamities of the past year had
cost Torka. By the time his unsteady hands levered a
spear and sent it flying, Grek and his sons would
suffer the same fate as Demmi.
Manaravak froze, transfixed. The wanawut,
standing upright, had drawn the spear from its back, and as
Tankh and Chuk yelled hysterically at Grek
to get up, the beast cracked the shaft in half.
Snarling, it threw the shattered pieces at the
threesome. When the butt end of the shaft hit
Tankh, panic set fire to the youth. He forgot
his father and his brother. He stood up and would have run
away, but his action instigated an instant reaction in
the silver back. The long arm reached out and slashed the
boy so hard across his face that his head snapped back
as he went sprawling. There was something unnatural in
the way Tankh fell. He did not get
up. And still Manaravak could not move.
Umak raced out of the darkness from the opposite side
of the encampment where he had chosen to spend the night with
Jhon well away from his people. As Manaravak
watched, Umak took deadly, sober,
unhesitating aim with his spear. Jhon did the
same. Simu and Dak closed on the beast with the
women and children right behind them, whirling their
bolas, hurling stones and clods of tundral
soil, and shouting, "Away! Away!"
Companion, Snow Eater, and the younger dogs were up.
Torka was in the fray now. He seemed to be himself
again, running low in long, powerful strides that took
him straight to Grek. Without hesitation, he hauled
the old man safely away, with Chuk trailing behind,
as Dak, Simu, Umak, and the boys kept at the
beast with their spears, hurting it, wounding it.
The silver back was openly bewildered. In a rain
of stones, surrounded by armed, shouting people and menacing
dogs, it let loose a howl of agony as one of
Umak's spears came in from behind to strike clean through
its back. It grasped at the projectile point
as it pierced through its chest. Another spear came
hurtling out of the fading night to strike the wanawut
through the throat. Manaravak felt its
pain. It was down again, on its knees, grabbing for
spears that were so deeply embedded that they would not pull
free . . . spears designed by one who had never
intended them to be used against such prey as this. Unable
to restrain himself, Manaravak howled with the wanawut,
sounding to it in the way of its kind to take away its
pain, confusion and, by so doing, eradicate his own.
The first light of the sun was showing over the eastern
ranges, but Manaravak hardly saw it. High
above, a white-headed eagle circled and keened as it
winged its way toward the southern mountains, but
Manaravak hardly heard it. His people were keening now!
The sound of their voices seemed to come from far away as
Manaravak watched Dak turn from the slain
wanawut. The man's face looked as though it had
been flayed. Slowly, as though each step hurt
him, Dak crossed the encampment, knelt
by Demmi's broken body, and took his woman in his
arms. It was a lover's embrace. With gentle
fingers, he lovingly smoothed her hair, arranging it
to cover the wounds in her mutilated scalp. He
kissed the blood from her face. He placed an
open, tenderly questing palm across her belly, and
then, with a moan of agony, he laid his face against
hers and sobbed her name.
"Demmi, come back to me, Demmi. You and the
baby,
our babyl
Do you hear me? Forgive me, Demmi. Come back
to me, please. How can I bear to lose you twice?"
It was a moment before he began to keen. He was not
alone. His people surrounded him. Swan stood close
at his
back, Naya to the side, looking down in horror
at the woman's corpse. With Torka and Lonit
kneeling beside him, touching the body of their beloved
daughter, Dak began to wail as Umak, in a
broken, constricted voice, offered the death song for his
sister and for the woman whom Dak had loved and spurned
and yet had never stopped loving ... or ever would.
"Demmi ..." Her name bled from Manaravak's
mouth. With it came all the cherished memories of
youth, of laughter and song and sharing, of Demmi at his
side, teaching him, loving him, risking everything for a
brother who, in the end, had chosen to side with the
wanawut and had let her die. He was so filled with
shame that his senses seemed to be screaming
Forgive me! Forgive me!
But these were the words of man, and by his actions he had
set himself apart from his own kind forever. When
he saw Grek gather the body of his son Tankh
in his arms and raise it to the sun, begging Father Above
to restore life to the children of the People, Manaravak's
heart felt as though it had been rent in two.
How could Father Above restore their lives when it was
Manaravak who had taken them as surely as though
he, and not the wanawut, had killed them? The question was
more than he could bear. He was not conscious of howling.
He knew only that his pain must be released, or he
would die of it. His head went back. His arms went
wide. His body shook as the sounds of his agony
escaped his lips and ascended to the sky until a
sharp, bruising pain to his shoulder silenced him.
A pale, curved object about the length of his forearm
went hurtling past him with deadly speed and power.
He heard it slice the air and knew that it would have
struck a mortal blow had it been only a few
inches higher and closer to his head. Grasping at his
aching biceps and staring in astonishment at his people,
Manaravak knew that one of them had thrown something at
him. To silence him or to kill him? He saw the
answer in their eyes. They were looking at him in
revulsion and horror, as though a treacherous,
murderous stranger had suddenly appeared to stand before
them in the skin of someone they had known and
loved and trusted.
He had betrayed their love. He had proved
unworthy of their trust. They had called him Son
and Brother and Man of the P; but in the end the
formative years that he had spent with beasts had named
him Wanawut.
Lonit's hands were folded around Torka's forearm.
The expression of abject misery on her face
told the story. Only a mother's love had saved
him when Torka had taken it upon himself to claim a
father's and a headman's right-to end the life of one who
had proved to be a threat to his band. Manaravak's
eyes widened as, disbelieving, he looked down and
saw Torka's bludgeon lying broken upon the
stones at his feet.
The etched whalebone-symbolic of the unity of the band
and of the strength and purpose of his father's life-was
broken . . . because of him. Demmi was dead . . .
because of him. Old Grek and the People mourned again . . .
because of him. Manaravak's heart, already torn by the
agony of regret, cracked wide.
He was Manaravak, son of Torka, a man of the
People, but on this dawn he had forfeited his right to live
among them. He turned away, longing for death,
deciding to seek it just as Honee cried out
in terror.
"Where is Li? Has anyone seen Li?"
"Or Yona?" asked Chuk and, suddenly, with a cry
of despair, began to call for his sister.
"Larani! Where are you, Larani?" called Simu,
and for a man who had declared time and time again that he wished
his daughter dead, he sounded inordinately concerned.
Suddenly he dropped to his knees and wailed like a
keening woman.
Larani!
The image of that bright, scarred, lustrous girl
pricked more sharply than the point of a spear. He was
suddenly alert again, alive again.
Where
was
Larani? Where
were
the children?
The worst fears of his people could not match the horror of the
truth: They had been stolen, taken by the wanawut,
not to be meat but to be mated with beasts who had not enough
females of their own.
"No!" Manaravak spoke the word of a man and did
not see the expanding expression of rage that was twisting
Umak's face.
"You! Animal! My daughter is gone because of you!
How could you have stood by and watched and done nothing?"
Manaravak still had a spear in his hand-a spear that
might have saved the life of Demmi or Tankh.
A spear that could still be spent, if not for them, then for
Larani and the children. When Umak charged him, he held
the spear point out, jabbed forward, and warned his brother
back until Dak tossed Umak a weapon.
Now, suddenly, the twin sons of Torka stood
facing one another. No one moved.
"You should never have come back, Manaravak. I will
kill you now. I
must
kill you now. You do not deserve to see another day!"
When Umak lunged, Manaravak leaped high and
away; nevertheless, his brother's spearhead sliced his
tunic and missed piercing his side by less than a
hair's width.
Never had Manaravak seen such hatred on his
brother's face. It twisted his strong, even
features and made them ugly, carnivorous. And
yet, even as Manaravak saw Umak position
himself for another thrust, he felt only love for
him, and with sorrow and regret, he whirled around and
knocked Umak flat.
"I must see another day!" he exclaimed, and as a
stunned, breathless Umak looked up at him out of
eyes that had gone momentarily blank, he turned and
ran.
He had misinterpreted the true nature of the
wanawut, but he
had
lived too long among them not to have learned their ways.
He would find them. And then, for Demmi and Tankh,
and for Li and Yona and Larani, he knew what he
must do.

Knife in hand, Larani plunged headlong into the
river and gave herself to the current. She looked
back over her bare shoulder. With a shock as
penetrating as the cold water, she saw that the
wanawut were still following. They could swim! She could
not. They were covered with thick, insulating fur! She
was naked. In a moment her body was so cold and aching
that it was all she could do to hold on to the knife.
Gasping for breath and straining to keep her head above
water, she tried to paddle in the way that she had seen
the dogs do at many a river crossing. It was no
good; she was too cold. She allowed the river
to take her as it would, reminding herself that she
weighed little compared to even the smallest wanawut;
perhaps the current would carry her more swiftly and keep
her bobbing at the surface while the heavy-bodied,
thick-boned beasts flailed about like rocks trying
to float. It was a fleeting hope. As Larani was
dragged under and pulled violently downstream, she
remembered the massively fat bodies of the
creatures that had swum so elegantly within the
Lake of Watered Blood and had a fleeting
image of the long, muscular arms of the wanawut
reaching over the waters, slicing through them with ease
while she was swept away.
The river was so cold. She gasped for air and
breathed in water. Choking, she flailed her arms,
kicked her legs, and somehow broke through to the
surface to discover air. She filled her lungs just
in time. The water took her down again. What did it
matter? she thought. It was not the first time that she had
been swept away by a river. After the initial
feelings of suffocation, drowning had not seemed so
bad-not nearly as bad as being captured and torn
apart by the ravenous beasts that were pursuing her.
She did not know when she lost consciousness; perhaps she
yielded to it too easily. When she awoke, the
angle of the sun told her that the brief
autumn day was already slipping past noon. What had
happened to the dawn and the morning? How far had the
river carried her? And where were the wanawut?
Shivering violently, she forced herself to sit up and
look around. She remained as still as her
cold-ravaged body would allow, straining to hear,
barely daring to breathe until at last she was
satisfied that there was neither sign nor sound of
wanawut. To her amazement, she discovered that her
dagger was still clenched between her stiff, benumbed fingers.
Heartened by this, she crawled out of the shallows and
crept across a rocky sandbar toward a thick grove
of cottonwoods that grew along the embankment at
the base of a south-facing bluff. Here, out of the wind,
with the sun filtering through the trees, she made a nest
and buried herself within the fallen leaves and lichens. It
took a few minutes to shiver herself warm. It took
longer than that to relax and feel life return to her
chilled body.
Larani lay very still. Where were the wanawut? Had the
river cast them onto this very shore, where, even now,
they might be prowling, searching, determined to find her?
Her fingers tightened around the sprucewood haft of
her knife.
Let them come,
she thought.
They will be sorry if they find me!
Her defiance did not last. She suddenly recalled
the big,
silver-backed male and the somewhat smaller one that had
refused to be drawn away from the encampment. Had the
People heard her warning screams in time? And what had
happened to Summer Moon's baby? By now someone
must have found it in the rocks. But who? Man or
beast? Larani's dread was all pervasive.
still
must know! I must get back!
But when she sat up, exhaustion knocked her down
again. She lay breathless, shivering again, so sleepy that
she could barely keep her lids apart. She must
sleep. She must recover from her own ordeal before she
could find the strength to face whatever may have happened
to the baby and the other members of the band.
The crying of Summer Moon's baby led the women
to the rocks outside the camp. With a sob of
relief, Summer Moon picked up the infant and,
bundling it in the warmth of Larani's dress, held
her child close. Larani's dress and footprints,
overlaid by the tracks of the wanawut, spoke
loudly of her fate.
Lonit shivered. What would have happened had the
daughter of Simu not screamed and led the beasts
away? The band would have been forced to contend with five
animals instead of two.
"She has saved many lives," said the headman's
woman. "Let us hope that she has not lost her
own. Come now. We have work to do."
They returned to the encampment in silence and set
themselves to the task of laying out the bodies of the dead.
The men and boys were gone. With their spears, spear
hurlers, and daggers, they had taken the dogs and
followed Manaravak out of camp in a killing
rage-in pursuit of him or the wanawut ... or
in search of Larani and the missing children? Lonit
wondered if they really knew just what it was they were
chasing. She could only hope it was more than hatred,
futility, and death.
She felt ill and exhausted, doubting that she would ever
see Manaravak again.
"Manaravak, my son, perhaps old Zhoonali,
medicine woman of Cheanah's band, was right about you,
after all. Perhaps it would have been better if you had not
been allowed to live. You have known bad luck all
your days and have brought sadness and turmoil to yourself and
to your people from your first breath!"
"No, Mother! Do not say it!" Swan exclaimed,
and leaned close to embrace Lonit.
But her mother waved her away. "What I say or do
not say will change nothing, Swan." She knelt before
Demmi's body, with Swan and Summer Moon on
either side of her. Naya, Honee, Uni, and
Kharn stood close at her back. "This day I have
seen Manaravak stand back and watch Demmi die
while making no move to help her. This day I have
seen Umak try to kill his brother. This day a
grandchild of mine has been stolen by beasts and may be
lost to us forever. This day, had I not stopped him,
Torka would have slain his own son. But my interference
was useless. On this day, before the sun disappears beyond the
western mountains, I know in my heart that
Manaravak will die ... at the hands of his own father."
Naya caught her breath. "They could not kill him.
They
could
not! He is-was
"Be still," Lonit commanded coldly. She could not
bear the sound of the young woman's voice. "It is you
who has put the bad blood between my sons."
"Stop! Please, stop!" Honee's chin was
wobbling. "My Li . . . she is so
small and such a good girl. Such a ... oh, do you
think the men will find her before . . . before-was
"They will find her, Honee! And Yona, too, and
Larani! We must believe that! We must not give
up hope!" Swan's voice was overly loud; if
there was hope in it, it sounded too much like despair.
Honee began to cry.
It occurred to Lonit that she should be weeping, too;
but she had no tears left. She looked at the
bodies of Tankh and Demmi. Poor Tankh.
Poor young bear of a boy. They had laid him out beside
Demmi, correcting the grotesque bend in his
neck that had twisted his head completely around. Never
again would Tankh strut proudly in the shadow of his father
or blush in adolescent terror of taking a woman
before he was ready. He would never take a woman at
all.
Lonit's breath caught in her throat as her glance
moved to rest upon Demmi. "I have lived too long.
..." She sighed, and as the breath went out of her so
did the will to live, and she slumped forward. Lying
prone across the body of her daughter, she embraced
Demmi as though she might capture what was left
of her life spirit and will it back to life. "Demmi!
My daughter! Come back to me! I cannot
bear this sorrow! I
am too old to carry the weight of so much grief!"
Suddenly she drew back, startled.
"Mother? What is it, Mother?"
Was it Swan or Summer Moon who had just
spoken? Lonit did not know, nor did she care.
Demmi had moved beneath her!
With her heart suddenly pounding, she threw herself across
her daughter's body once more and-yes!-there it was
again. A strong rippling movement beneath the fur that
covered Demmi's distended abdomen.
"Demmi!" Lonit looked up, touching her
daughter's face, seeking signs of movement in the
closed lids. There was none . . . until,
suddenly, the ripple became a kick, and
Lonit's heart lurched. "The baby!" she cried.
Demmi
was
dead, but her unborn child was alive, and in that child the
life spirit of Lonit's wild, stubborn,
intractable daughter was clinging to this world and speaking to her
mother from the world beyond this world . . . begging to be free
... to be reborn into the world of the living once more!
Lonit pulled back the furs that covered Demmi
and savagely slit open her dead
daughter's tunic with a dagger.
Naya moved forward. "I want to help," she
offered.
"Get out of the way, you!" Lonit's voice was as
cold as a storm wind. She shoved the young woman
away.
"We have seen what your 'help" has brought to lana
and her baby," Summer Moon said hatefully.
"Stay back, or you will regret the next step you
take!"
Beside her, Swan took hold of Kharn's
shoulders, and though the boy protested and squirmed
against her hold, she turned him around and pressed his
face into her skirt. "This is woman wisdom, not
for the eyes of ... Then." his
"Or for girls of your age, either, Uni," said
Summer Moon, her tone gentle as she drew the
girl close.
With one long, sure sweep of her knife, Lonit
opened Demmi from hipbone to hipbone. The
headman's woman was weeping, and then, abruptly,
as her hands emerged from deep within Demmi's belly,
she was laughing through her tears. Dropping blood and
womb water, she raised an infant high for all
to see. The baby's arms were moving! Its
fists were waving!
"Demmi!" Lonit sobbed her daughter's name. And
then, in the absence of the headman and the child's father, she
named the child. "Demmit . . . Little Demmi . . .
this peo-
pie welcomes the return of its daughter into the world
of the living! Be at once an all-new life spirit in
this world and strong in the spirit of the one whose name you carry and
from whose body you have come forth!"
The baby did not look strong. Its arms were limp
now. Still connected to the umbilical cord, it lay
breathless and blue in Lonit's hands.
Honee wore a look of dismay upon her
tear-streaked face. "Take it to the river! Quickly!
Cold water will shock it into life!"
Lonit's eyes scanned frantically across the
encampment, measuring the distance between herself and the river.
"It is too far! There is no time. It has already
been too long in the womb of the dead! If this baby
is going to live, it must breathe now!" Without
hesitation, she lowered the motionless form, transferring
the infant into the fold of her left arm as, with the fingers
of her right hand she probed the tiny nostrils and opened
the lax little mouth so that she might trespass deep in
search of birth debris. This done, the
woman of Torka placed her mouth over the
infant's face and breathed life into Demmi's child.
The women smiled with delight. The baby was crying!
The baby was screaming! It kicked its legs and
shook its fists, and in a moment, its pale blue
skin began to bloom with healthy, purple-red,
highly oxygenated flowers that told all that this child's
lungs and heart were as strong as its will to live.
Swan smiled a sad smile. "Listen to her demand
her way. Truly, Mother, you have named her well. This
little girl is Demmi all over again!"
"The little one is hungry. Here. I have milk enough for
two. I will feed my sister's child," offered Summer
Moon. As she accepted the baby from her mother's arms
and looked down at the squalling face, her smile
was very much like Swan's. "This may be Demmi's
girl, but she has Dak's face. He will be glad
for that."
Swan's face tightened. "He will not care. Though
he may have said otherwise, I know his heart. It will
be enough for him to know that it is Demmi's child. As it will
also be for me. Demmit will be sister to Kharn-and to the
baby that I will bear in the spring."
Larani was awakened by the sound of footfalls running
through fallen leaves. She opened her eyes
and stared through the bare, shifting canopy of the trees.
The sun was still up. She had not slept long-only enough
to replenish her exhausted body and to warm herself beneath the
blanket that she had made of leaves and lichens. The
wind had turned. The air was colder now; she could
feel its chill against her face. But that was nothing when
compared to the cold fear in her heart. Something was moving
just beyond the trees. She heard the crush and rustle of
leaves, the low, rhythmic huffs of breath. What
... or who . . . was out there beyond the grove?
Wanawut!
Terror ran wild within her. She held her breath
lest it betray her presence. She willed herself
to lie so still that her pulse seemed as loud as comthe
Great Mad River at full flood.
Gripping her dagger tightly, Larani heard the
sound of the river running wide beyond the grove, the wind
in the trees, the brittle flurry of dry leaves,
and the thin, almost painful sound of stalks and branches
chafing against one another. Now and again a fish jumped
in the river. Leaves fell constantly, sighing down,
settling close. Insects moved in the ground cover
and within her makeshift nest; she listened to their
scuttlings and meanderings . . . and the manlike
footfalls of the larger creature that had
roused her from her dreamless sleep.
Larani willed herself to be hopeful. She heard one
pair of feet, not three! Perhaps she was hearing a
hunter of her band, someone sent after her when her
tracks were discovered. Not even Simu would abandon
her to beasts if there was a chance that she was still alive.
Or would he? Yes, she thought miserably, he
probably would consider it a kindness. But Dak would
come looking for her. And Grek would never turn his
back upon his new woman. Torka would lead a
search party out from camp, with Umak and Manaravak
at his side.
Manaravak! Come for me. Manaravak! Please
come for me!
Light-headed from holding her breath, she experienced
a momentary euphoria as she thought of him. But common
sense prevailed. She was Grek's woman."
She remained motionless, wondering why she wanted
to live.
Then, suddenly, her eyes opened wide. Her
senses were screaming, Run.
Run away!
But she knew that to run was to have the beast at her
heels, for now she clearly heard more than wind
moving in the trees and more than the footfall
of a man: A wrathful screech destroyed the silence
of the grove; a wanawut screamed in anger, a child
began to cry; and a young girl wailed as if on the
brink of madness when, from the top of the bluff, the
distinctly different resounding howls of three
wanawut voices answered as though summoning the
lone beast and the captive children.
"Did you hear that?" Wheezing and gray-faced,
Grek stopped in his tracks. "That was my Yona's
cry! She is still alive! We must find her before it
is too late!"
"The beast has gone downriver." Torka was terse
and noncommittal. The men had lost the creatures'
tracks far back, when the wanawut had entered the
river. Much time had been lost looking for their sign.
"And downriver is where we will find Larani and the
others of the beast's kind!"
Simu's face had the stretched, pained, wide-eyed
look of one who clings to a dying hope. "Yes,
yes, I know, I know!" he exclaimed
irritably. "My Larani led them straight into the
river and away from us! Umak and Jhon heard her
screaming, didn't you? Yelling at the top of her
lungs to warn us! What a daughter my girl has
turned out to be! What a brave and-was
was "Your girl"?" Dak shook his head and
leveled a look of abhorrence at his father. "Ever
since the fire, all you have ever wanted was to see
Larani die! You sicken me, Father. And worse
than that, you shame me-and my sister."
"Enough!" Torka demanded. "We will accomplish
nothing by standing here and insulting one another. What has
happened cannot be undone. We must hurry! If
Yona still lives, perhaps Li is alive, too."
"And Larani!" reminded Simu with a high-pitched
enthusiasm that betrayed his own disbelief.
Torka felt pity for his old friend. How sad for him
to have discovered the merit of the young woman too late.
Ever since Larani's footprints had disappeared
into the river-with the tracks of the wanawut right on top
of them-Torka had lost all hope of ever rinding her
alive.
"Manaravak's tracks continue to lead the way,"
said Umak. As he strode out beside Torka with
Jhon and Companion at his side, a murderous
expression of pure loathing twisted his face. "He
seeks his own kind at last and, in the seeking, will show
us the way to find them . . . and him and the children."
Jhon looked up at his father. "You are going to kill
him, aren't you?"
"Yes," affirmed Umak blackly. "I am."
"No," said Torka, and felt another part of himself
die. "Manaravak is my son. When he was born
beneath a black moon and a red sky, I defied the
omens of the forces of Creation and let him live. I
should have killed him then. It was my right to take his
life. Now it is my obligation." He saw the
tremor of compassion for him sweep through Umak and
did not have the heart to add: As
it will be your obligation to take the life ofationaya if
we return to the band.
Manaravak stopped. He, too, had heard the child
scream and the beasts screech and howl. His spirit soared with
triumph. They were at the top of a tall bluff that
lay far ahead, beyond a grove of nearly
bare-branched cottonwoods. At least one of the children
was still alive! With the wind in his face and the howling of the
wanawut in his ears, he threw back his head and
howled back to them-brother to brother, kind to kind.
Larani lay still for a few more minutes, then sat up
so slowly that the tumbling leaves disturbed by her
movement made virtually no sound. She crept on
all fours to the edge of the grove and peered out. She
could see a single wanawut trudging toward the bend
in the river where, atop the farthest escarpments
of the massive bluff, the three wanawut that had
earlier given chase to her stood beckoning.
The lone wanawut had a small child slung across its
left shoulder.
"Li!" Larani exclaimed. Her heart bled for the
child and ached mercilessly at the sight of Yona walking
behind the wanawut. With her feet dragging and the fringes
of her
clothes waving in the wind like snarled, uncombed
hair, Grek's proud, sometimes-nasty little girl
looked bedraggled and soiled. With her head drooping,
her garments torn, and one moccasin missing, she
followed along in absolute dejection.
"Why do you follow, Yona? Run away!"
Larani soon had her answer. Yona was
deliberately lagging, widening the space between herself
and the wanawut until, suddenly, she made an
attempt to run off. The beast turned, closed the
gap, and knocked her down. In less time than it
took Larani to gasp and Yona to scream, the
wanawut grasped the girl by her hair and pulled
her high off the ground, shaking her until she went
limp. Then it dropped her hard. Yona sat
stunned for a moment before trying to crawl away. When the
beast dragged her back by a thigh, she
screamed and screamed until, towering over her, the
wanawut outscreamed her and, threatening with its
fangs, yanked her up by her braids and shoved her
along.
Larani knew she must try to free the girls before the
wanawut set themselves to make a meal of them ...
although why this had not already happened was puzzling. Dark
and ominous memories turned her gut: ancient
tales of "wind spirits" that materialized out of the fog
to steal the women and girls of the People so that they might
raise them as their own and mate with them to produce
creatures that were neither man nor mist but wanawut.
"Li, Yona, I will not leave you to such a fate as
that!"
Larani did not hesitate. Child Stealer was now far
enough away for her to react without alerting it to her
presence. With grim deliberation, she rose and moved
quickly within the grove, seeking the raw material for
staves. Several tall, straight-trunked saplings
served her purpose well. She felled them with her
dagger, hacking away superfluous branches until
she had five shafts approximately a quarter the
height of her own body. The work went quickly, but her
palms were raw and bleeding by the time each was sharpened at
one end into a deadly point.
This done, she tucked the newly made staves under
her arm and followed the beasts and the children, staying hidden
within the shade of the cottonwoods until the three
wanawut on the bluff disappeared and she was able
to track Child Stealer without undue fear of being seen
by its companions. She briefly wondered what had
happened to the big silver
backed male and smiled with satisfaction when she
realized that the hunters of the band must have killed it.
The wind was cold against her bare skin. Soon the
sun would vanish beyond the western ranges. With the wind
behind it, the air would grow frigid, and a naked woman
would be too cold to succeed at the task to which she had
set herself.
Larani paused beside a broad stretch of caribou
lichen, set down her staves, and with her dagger began
to cut away feverishly at the stalks of the wide,
leathery, antler-shaped, gray-green "branches."
She paid no heed to the pain in her blistered
palms-pain was no stranger to her. She had learned
to live with it long ago. Smiling with bitter irony,
she thanked Daughter of the Sky for having allowed her
to master a discipline that might now save Yona and
Li.
At last, with her palms bleeding and oozing,
she eyed the considerable mound of her gleaned treasure
and judged it adequate for her intent. For a moment
she hesitated. Then, with a deep breath of
resolve, she used her dagger once more-to hack
off her hair-whose treasured length had finally reached
the point of hiding the scars on her scalp.
Twisting the strands into cording, she took up the
lichens and bound them together, rapidly fashioning a
crude cape that would shield her from the cold. It would
be rough and abrasive against her skin, but it would serve
well enough. Even so, as she slung it on and got
to her feet, she knew what she must look like and
cringed. Without her hair to cover her scarring, she
felt truly naked for the first time.
"But what does it matter!" she spoke aloud to the
wind. "Who will gaze upon me now except children who will
be glad to see me and beasts that are uglier than I
am!"
Grimly she walked on. She had her dagger. She
had her staves. She had a cape of lichen to shield
her from the cold. With these things and the wisdom of
generations of the People at her command, Larani knew that she
would not be totally naked or at a complete
disadvantage when she set herself alone against the
wanawut.
Umak paused. The Seeing Wind was rising in him,
and he did not like what he saw. It was a vision of
blood. . . .
"Umak! What is it, Umak?" old Grek
pressed, glad for the opportunity to sit down.
The shaman did not move. He stood facing due
north.
The wanawut were howling again. His little Li was with them
if she still lived. Was it her blood he saw?
"Listen ..." urged Simu. "Manaravak is
howling with them!"
"He is one of them at last," said Dak.
Umak shook himself to cast off the weight of his
emotionally draining vision. He failed; as he
looked at Torka there was still blood in his eyes.
"Do not kill him quickly, Father."
The saddest look that Umak had ever seen moved upon
Torka's features as the headman spoke. "He
did not ask for his fate. He was torn from his mother's
arms to suckle the milk of life from the breast of an
animal. But you have always lived among men. What
beast speaks from your heart, Umak? Who has put
the blood in your eyes and the hatred in your spirit for your
brother?"
"Naya, my dear girl." Honee stared
across the gloom of the shaman's hut to where the red-eyed,
sobbing young woman was frantically ripping her
medicine supplies apart. "What are you doing?"
"I am gathering up every medicine berry that I can find
so that I can throw them all in the river where they belong!
And how can you call me your "dear girl,"
Honee? I am a terrible girl!"
"You are dear to me, a sister of my fire
circle."
"How can you say that? Because of me Li is gone, and
Yona and Larani, too. Because of me Demmi and
Tankh are dead, Manaravak has run off, and
everyone in the band hates him and wants him dead. I
am the one who is at fault. If I had not put
so many berries in the celebration drink, everyone would
not have been so drunk and the wanawut could never have
gotten into camp. Manaravak and Umak would not have
fought and-was
Honee shook her head. "So heavy the robe of
sorrow and regret for one small woman! You meant
to work good medicine, not bad. I do not blame you,
Naya. We all drank past the sip that tells a
body that it has drunk too much and should stop." With a
wan smile, she gestured to Naya. "Come. Help
me. I am sorting Li's belongings so that
when she returns, her possessions will be in order,
and she can change and settle herself and-was
"Li's clothes are always in order, Honee."
"Yes, but I thought that if we worked very hard and very
noisily and speak out Li's name often and loud, the
spirits of this world and the next will hear us and ... if they
see that we are expecting our Li to come home ..."
She paused, aware of the edge of desperation that had
broken her words, and went on calmly. "She will come
home! Yes. The spirits will send her back to us.
Won't they?"

The air was growing very cold. In the last lingering light
of dusk, Larani reached the top of the bluff. She
could hear the wanawut sounding somewhere below. Bending against
the wind, she picked up sign that led her to the place
where the wanawut had moved downward.
Sprawling flat against the stone so that her body might
draw into itself the last of the sunlight that had been stored
in the rock, Larani's half-frozen brow came
down as she peered over the bluff's edge. The
wanawut were at the base of a narrow stream canyon
where, amid stunted spruce and bare-branched
hardwoods, they had joined with Child Stealer to hunker out
of the wind. She could make out the muted
colors and textures of their furred bodies in the
thickening shadows of the defile.
The beasts were sounding desultorily to one another, and
Larani realized that they were expressing grief and
sadness. Yona, apparently unhurt, cowered with her
back to a good-sized boulder, her arms locked about
her limbs and her knees pulled up to her chin. The
single female was sitting apart and moaning, rocking
on her haunches, holding Li to her breast, and
mewing to the little girl as to a lost child.
Larani's mouth opened with amazement as she realized
that the beasts were mourning their dead! At dawn they had
been a pack of five; now there were only four:
three males and one pregnant female with a human
child clutched pathetically in its arms. As Larani
watched the female fondling and cooing to Li,
intuition told her that the animal had recently lost
a young one of its own. Li would come to no harm in the
arms of this beast. She would be mothered, nurtured,
cherished-as Manaravak had been mothered and nurtured and
cherished. He had been right about the wanawut all
along! There
was
something profoundly human about these creatures.
Compassion touched Larani and caused her
fingers to relax around the haft of her dagger until
one of the larger males rose to its feet and pounded its
fists against its chest.
The animal seemed restless, angry. It circled
twice, then stopped behind the pregnant female and
leaned low to sniff at her bottom. With Li
gripped to her breast, the female turned sharply and
warned him back with a quivering snout and lips rolled
up to show her teeth. The big male screeched
furiously, dangerously. Unintimidated, she
swiped at him with her free hand and boldly
screeched back before resuming her mothering of Li,
ignoring the pathetic protests comofthe little girl as her
long, clawed, hairy fingers began to pick the
feathers from the thong lacing of Li's braids.
The big male turned from the female. Two long
strides placed it before Yona. It leaned close,
sniffed at her, poked at her, and though she sat
curled up tight, the wanawut managed to run a
questing hand along her flank and under her buttocks.
Yona stiffened and, evidently beyond screaming, made
small whimperings of despair. "No ... no ...
no ... please ... no ..."
Larani was sickened. Her position on the bluff
placed her close enough to see the beast leer with
sexual intent as it raised its massive hand,
sniffed its fingers, and licked them. She knew that the
animal could not possibly have found either smell or
taste of a ripe and ready female in Yona.
Nevertheless, the wanawut leaped to its feet, threw
back its head, and beat its chest as it howled and
displayed itself for the girl.
Larani's eyes went wide with disbelief. From within
the long, gray-black hair that covered its belly
and loins, the wanawut drew out the largest, most
distended penis that she had ever seen.
Yona's reaction was instantaneous. She loosed a
high-pitched, bloodcurdling scream. Startled, the
big male stepped backward as the girl jumped up
and ran around the boulder to hide beneath the close-growing
trunks of several spruce trees.
The wanawut took off after her. He reached down
into the maze of thickly foliated branches, but the
girl eluded his
grasp. His great, hairy hands angrily ripped
away several branches. Panic-stricken, Yona
managed to duck away, leaping from the cover of one
tree trunk to another until she pressed herself
against the back of a large tree against which many smaller
ones grew close, forming a natural
barrier to the violently questing hand of the beast.
Infuriated, the wanawut took hold of the tree,
and with all of its power, he pushed against the bole.
Larani heard the ripping of roots being pried
loose as, with a single mighty shove, the spruce
fell. Screaming again, this time in terror of being
crushed by the falling tree, Yona leaped aside.
Her reaction was too late, she fell beneath a maze
of branches. Unharmed but stunned, she lay
sprawled on her belly as the wanawut reached down
and pulled her up by her back. He turned her
toward him and held her in one hand while the other
lifted what was left of her tunic and fingered her
obscenely. Then, forcing her limbs wide, he
seated himself and began to position her for rape.
Without a moment's hesitation or a single thought about
her own safety, Larani leaped to her feet. With
all of her strength, she hurled a stave down at the
beast. The pointed end of the weapon buried itself in
thick muscle just above his right shoulder blade. He
leaped up in pain, grabbing at the stave and jerking it
out. Another pierced his back. This one appeared
to penetrate deeply. He whirled around, screeching
in outrage as he tried to pull it out. Yona was
free of him, stumbling away.
Larani shouted, "Run, Yona! Run into the thick
trees in the narrow of the ravine. It will slow their
pursuit. Don't look back!"
But Yona was too disoriented by her ordeal to obey.
She was on her knees, head down, crawling away
so slowly that Larani screamed down at her
to hurry. Meanwhile, bleeding from wounds that had not
proven fetal, the big male had lost interest in
Yona and was glowering up at Larani with two staves
in his hand and death glinting in his eyes.
Larani's heart sank. Instead of being weakened, the
muscles along his upper back and neck were bunching,
and every hair in his mane and along the curve of his
spine was standing on end. While he glared at
Larani, the female clutched Li even tighter and
ran off to hide behind the boulder as the larger of the other
two males came to check the wounds of his "brother."
Growling, he turned and followed the gaze of the
injured animal to fix his small eyes upon her.
Larani swallowed hard. Now two wanawut were
staring up at her. Worse, the third male was taking
advantage of their distraction. Excited by the sight
of Yona's bare bottom, he sprang forward and
grabbed her from behind. When he dropped to his knees
Larani saw with horror that he was holding
his penis, lancelike, ready to pierce the girl
straight through.
"No!" Larani screamed in protest, stepping as
close to the edge of the bluff as she dared while
gesturing savagely. But her actions only served
to ignite the fury of the big, injured male. With a
howl of anger, he broke forward and began to pound his
way up the ravine toward her, moving so fast that the
sight nearly paralyzed her.
Larani willed herself to ignore his progress. In
a matter of minutes he would be beside her and would tear
her to pieces. Although she still had three staves and could
hurl them all to drop him in his tracks, she knew
that her next stave must be for the beast that was at Yona.
If she could throw it hard and true enough, she might
kill the thing-or at least hurt it enough to give Yona
a moment's opportunity to run for freedom. It was
the only chance the girl had left . . . even though
Larani knew that by so choosing she was forfeiting her own
chance for survival. She would not have time to throw another
spear in her own defense before the other wanawut was
upon her.
The stave flew and went wide of its target.
Larani's anguish was short-lived; the wanawut was
leaping at her. Instinctively, she hurled
away the remaining stave. The beast's arms were wide,
and its teeth were bared. Impelled by a killing fury,
it was on her now. There was no time to avoid death.
But-she still had her dagger; with a little luck, she might
make the wanawut die with her! As the huge,
hairy body of the beast overwhelmed her, she screamed
in defiance and stabbed out and up with all her might just as
something big and powerful grabbed her from behind, twisted her
violently sideways, and threw her down.
Manaravak fell backward with Larani, and the
wanawut landed on top of him. He had come onto
the bluff only moments before and saw Larani hurl
her stave and then stand to the attacking beast. The speed
of the rushing wanawut had allowed Manaravak no time
to do anything but race forward, come up behind Larani, and
drop to one knee as he positioned
his spear with its barbed stone head pointing up and forward
while he jammed the butt end of the shaft hard against
the ground.
The wanawut, with its eyes fixed upon Larani, had
not seen Manaravak until it was too late. The
momentum of its forward charge had not allowed it to turn
away. Awkwardly, arms wide, still closing on
Larani, it lunged forward, impaling itself through the
heart upon Manaravak's spear. With a
single gasp of shock, it fell, driving the spear
straight through its chest and its back. As Manaravak
desperately and vainly tried to heft Larani out
of the way, the beast collapsed and lay spread-eagled
over both of them.
The weight of the animal was terrible. So was the stench as
its body, still twitching in death, released its
bodily fluids. It required all of
Manaravak's strength to heft the corpse up. With
his left arm still curled protectively around
Larani's waist, Manaravak rolled sideways.
In a moment he and the girl were standing over the dead
wanawut. They were both stunned and shaking.
Larani's dagger was still in her hand-wet to the haft with the
dark, arterial blood of the wanawut. Disbelieving,
she stared at the blade and then, with even more disbelief
in her eyes, she looked up at him.
"Manaravak?" she whispered.
He nodded, unable to find his voice. When he had
pulled her from her feet, her hideous cape of
lichens had ripped and fallen away. She stood
naked before him now. He had forgotten how
extraordinarily beautiful her body was. Although
her chopped-off hair revealed the full extent of
her scars, he did not see them. His mind
was filled with the wonder of the way she had stood alone,
hurling her crudely fashioned weapons, boldly
facing death as though she had no fear of it or anything
else in all the world.
Suddenly she gasped. Another wanawut was coming up
from the ravine.
With one foot braced on the back of the fallen beast,
Manaravak gripped his spear and yanked it from the
back of the dead wanawut. He turned and positioned
himself to take on the other beast. "Run!" he commanded
Larani.
"Never!" she replied. "Yona is down there! And
Li! I have come this far to save them. I won't
leave them-or you-to face the beasts alone!" She
retrieved her staves and stood at his side,
poised for an attack.
But the unmistakable sound of barking dogs was heard,
and a man called out from the far end of the bluff. The
wanawut stopped dead, caught the stink of death and
dogs and armed men, and wisely turned to scramble
back along the way it had come. Larani went after
it.
Manaravak caught her by a wrist. "Where are you
going?"
"The children are down there."
For a moment he thought to reply, "Wanawut do not
hurt children." Then he remembered the scene in the
encampment and heard Yona scream. The sound of pain
and madness in the child's cries grew louder until,
with a cracking sound, the screaming ceased.
Hackles rose at the back of Manaravak's
neck. Side by side with Larani, he moved forward
and looked down past the fleeing wanawut into the
depths of the darkening ravine.
A sob shook Larani. "No!" she moaned, and
turned away.
Manaravak's free arm enfolded her and pressed
her close-as though an embrace could take away the
horror of what they had both seen. He continued
to stare down, deliberately filling himself with the sight
of a mature male wanawut pumping to frenzied,
slathering completion on a human child. Yona's head
hung forward, bobbing up and down with every thrust of the
animal who was joined to her. From the way her body
sagged in the merciless grasp of the beast, it was clear
to Manaravak that the girl was dead.
Shame and sorrow filled him. The barking of dogs was
much closer comnow. Men were calling-running forward, if
he was to judge from their voices. Standing with his back
to the body of the slain wanawut and staring down
into the ravine, he saw the other beast join its
"brother" and pull it forcefully away from Yona's
lifeless body. As she crumpled onto the ground,
the two wanawut ran off into the trees, yipping and
howling, with never a backward glance.
A terrible coldness filled Manaravak. He thought
of the role his hesitancy back at the encampment
played in Demmi's death and Tankh's-and now,
indirectly, Yona's. His mind was numb, but with
Larani pressed close against his side, the numbness
suddenly burst into the flame of an epiphany that
burned within his heart and spirit: He had been raised
by a wanawut to live and think as an animal, but he
was
not
one of them. He was a man, not a beast! He was
Manaravak, son of Torka and Lonit; but before
he could face his parents again,
there was a debt that he must pay to them and to the dead-and
to the beasts that had betrayed his trust.
"Li is still alive," said Larani, moving from his
embrace, wiping away her tears and reaching for her
cape to break the chill of the wind. As she refastened
a few torn knots and slung it around her
shoulders, she told him earnestly, "There
are three wanawut left: the two males you saw
and a female. She has Li. From what I saw,
I do not think the female will hurt her, but she will
never give her up without a fight."
"Then I will give her one." Manaravak's heart
was colder than the wind that was blowing across the bluff.
And yet, when he looked into Larani's face,
something that he saw in her eyes warmed him, gentled
him, soothed him more magically than any of Naya's
potions or salves had ever done.
Love?
He was taken aback. Yesst It was love that he
saw in Larani's eyes. A love as deep as the
hatred that he now felt for the wanawut.
She looked back over her shoulder. Relief shone
in her eyes. "Now we have a chance! Look!
Torka comes with the others and the dogs!"
His expression was bleak. "I am afraid that they
come for me as well as for the beasts and the children, Larani."
Her eyes went wide. "I don't understand!"
"They will explain. Now I must go. I must do this
alone, for Demmi and Tankh and Yona . . . but
most of all, for myself-and for my people."
When he turned and made to run away, she reached out
and grabbed his arm. "No! Wait for the
others! You are one man with only one spear! You cannot
set yourself against three wanawut!"
"You did," he reminded her, and then, as amazed
by his action as she was, he leaned down and kissed
her. It was not a long kiss, but it was square on the
mouth and pleased him intensely.
Her face flamed with a blush. Tears welled in her
eyes as she lowered her head. His hand reached out and
raised her face to his. He knew by her
expression that she was ashamed of her scars, but when she
tried to wave his hand away, he caught her fingers in
his own and smiled. "You are not so bad ugly,
Larani! You are brave. You are bold. To the
eyes of this man, you are beautiful. Here, now.
Give me your dagger and your staves."
"You must wait for the others. Manaravak, please,
listen to reason. It is getting dark!"
"In the darkness Li will whimper in fear, a
captive of the wanawut. In the darkness my people will be
brought to pause. In the darkness it will take a
wanawut to hunt wanawut. And if the forces of
Creation are with me, Larani, one who has been
raised as an animal will
be
an animal for the last time!"

In the darkness the hunters tracked Manaravak and the
wanawut, but the night was thick and black, and soon
they despaired of ever finding them. Reluctantly the
men called back the dogs and made a cold camp,
but only the dogs ate. Frustrated and somber, the
men dozed fitfully and tried not to dream. Grek's
heartbreaking lamentations could be heard coming from the bluff
where he and the boys had remained behind with Larani and the
body of Yona. When the sound of the old man's
voice broke or grew faint, they heard Larani
and young Chuk take up his mourning cries. After a
while, as the glimmering stars shifted across the sky, the
hunters heard the howling of wolves . . . and of
wanawut . . . and of Manaravak.
"Listen!" Umak snapped to his feet beside
Torka. "Despite all that Larani has said in
his defense, he still howls with them!" He was trembling
with hatred of his brother, with longing for his little daughter,
and against his memories of what the beasts had done
to Demmi, Tankh, and Yona. "If we find
Li as we found the others, I will not stand back while
you kill him, Father. I will wet my spear in his
blood, and when he lies dead at my feet, you will
hear
me
howl!"
Torka eyed his son out of weary eyes. "If we
find Li as we found the others, we will kill him
together, Umak. You have my word on that. And then we will
break our spears and mourn together."
"Never will I mourn for Manaravak!"
"Then mourn for yourself, my son, and for me ... for I
have seen so much death since the rising of the last sun that
it feels as if a portion of my own spirit has left
my body to walk the wind forever."
In the moonless dark, Manaravak continued to follow
the wanawut. He was exhausted. The beasts had been
on the move all night, and they had traveled far.
At first the dogs' barking had driven the wanawut
on at near breakneck speed. He envied them their
night vision. Nevertheless, years of living as one of
them had sharpened his own senses, and he kept after them,
out of the ravine and across low, tundral scrub.
Occasionally he stumbled over stones and snags, but he
always managed to stay on their scent and within the sound of
their footfall.
He had not been surprised when they entered the river
and sloshed along in the shallows at the water's edge,
obliterating their tracks and scent and
effectively slowing if not confounding the pursuit of the
men and dogs. But Manaravak had not been slowed;
he was well ahead of the hunters of his band, for,
unlike them, he could anticipate where the wanawut
would travel and the kind of country they would seek.
He kept after them, always hanging back just out of
sight. He knew that they heard him; he made
certain
that they heard him as he alternately made the sounds
of man and dog and every beast that his vocal cords could
imitate. He called Li's name loudly so that if
she was still alive, she would know that he was following and be
less afraid. Now and then a wanawut would stop,
turn back, and screech a warning in his direction and
at the wolves that howled close by, speaking of
territory and trespass and giving warnings of their
own.
High, thin clouds swept in to obscure the stars.
The night became as black as a pitch pool, but
Manaravak did not mind. He had the wanawut on
the move, and this was what he wanted. He hoped that the
chase prevented them from thinking too much about their
captive. In time they would tire. When they began
to weaken, he would stand a chance against them.
After a while the dogs stopped barking, and
Manaravak guessed that Torka had stopped to rest
or called off the search until first light. But would
the hunters have until the first light to save Li?
Manaravak had heard no sound from the little girl for a
long time. He thought of Yona and increased his pace,
barking and howling fiendishly.
After a time he followed in absolute silence,
wanting the wanawut to think that he, too, had given
up the chase.
Breathing as silently as the rising wind of dawn,
Manaravak watched the wanawut and continued to bide
his time. They were resting at last. He rested also, but
he did not sleep. He would sleep later, when and
if he rescued Li. His eyes narrowed
speculatively. The child was still alive, lying on her
side, fast asleep in the protective curl of the
female wanawut's arms. All of the beasts were
sleeping deeply at last.
Manaravak smiled grimly: They had chosen a
wind-protected hollow away from the river and within
rolling tundral hills. It was a bad choice,
one that they would never have made had they not been
exhausted. They had given him the advantage of
high ground from which to observe them.
He could hear the dogs again. The wanawut
would have heard them, too, had they not been so fatigued
that they had sunk into their dreams as though they had nothing
to fear.
With his spear in one hand, Larani's staves in the
other, and her dagger in his teeth, Manaravak began
to creep toward his prey. Behind him the rising sun
spread a soft, bluish light. It was going to be a
beautiful morning-but not for the wanawut.
Manaravak was among the beasts now. Silent,
barely having to breathe, he set down his spear and
staves behind the sleeping female wanawut, and then
he quickly leaned over her, grasping her muzzle in
the bend of his left forearm, and squeezed it shut as
he twisted her head up and hard to one side. As she
struggled, she let loose of Li.
The child was instantly awake and scooting back on her
knees while Manaravak tried to cut the throat
of the wanawut with Larani's dagger. He could not get
the angle he needed for a mortal wound. Blood
splattered hot upon his face and salty within his mouth.
His own blood was pounding in his head and heart.
Li opened her mouth to scream, but terror had stolen
her voice.
"Run!" he commanded. The female wanawut was
thrashing and twisting violently against his
hold. She was so strong that he was forced to pivot around
and straddle her in order to keep her down. It was
all he could do to keep himself from being pitched
sideways off her. He held on, feeling the
contours of the animal writhing beneath him: breasts,
swollen belly, hard with new life.
He willed himself to think only of Demmi and of what
the beasts had done to her. He would not think of the
animal that raised him. No! That beast was dead! This
one was still alive-a slayer of his people, a predator that,
along with the males of her pack, had destroyed the
last illusions and vestiges of the love that he had
felt for her kind.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, the wanawut managed
to dig in with her heels, arch her back, and lever up
so violently that Manaravak was jolted into the air.
He lost his grip and, off-balance, nearly toppled
sideways. Trying to regain his hold on the beast's
muzzle, he found that she had a hold on him
instead. Her teeth were deep in his left forearm, her
jaws crushing, working, chewing.
The pain was excruciating. He cried out.
Desperate now, his right hand sliced down and across her
throat again and again. With all his power behind it, he
felt the blade strike bone and then cut
into the spine. The wanawut's jaws fell open as the
beast collapsed beneath him and lay still, her eyes
glazing, her lifeblood running from mutilated
veins.
Stunned, he knelt back and stared at his left
forearm. The many deep wounds were bleeding profusely.
This arm would serve him no more this day ... or perhaps ever
again.
"Manaravak!"
Startled by Li's quivering voice, he turned
to see that the girl had not run to safety. She was still
on all fours, staring wide-eyed and in obvious
shock at the two male wanawut that were coming straight
at him.
It was the mad, enraged screeching of a wanawut that
caused Torka and the others to break into a run. The
dogs, were well ahead of them, Companion leading the
way. By the time the men crested the rise, the dogs were
racing toward Manaravak. The sun was up and at their
backs. Its light poured down into the hollow where
Manaravak was fighting for his life.
He was not winning. He had already thrown three
staves, which had evidently gone wide, for they were on
the ground behind the advancing wanawut. The men could
see that Manaravak's left arm was
bloodied and virtually useless. He threw his last
spear at the more aggressive wanawut. It fell
short. Manaravak froze. And now the hunters
froze as well.
Although he was obviously wounded and unsteady, he
stood his ground, deliberately positioning himself between
Li and the beasts, giving the child a chance to scramble
wildly to safety.
Li was sobbing when she reached the top of the rise and
threw herself into Umak's arms, burying her wet little
face in his chest. "Don't let them kill him,
Father! Please, don't let them kill him! He
saved me. He came after me. All night I
heard him following. I knew that he would not let me
die!" She looked around. "Where is Yona?"
"She ... we left her behind ... in the care of
Larani," Umak replied.
"By the forces of Creation, all he has left is a
dagger!" Simu was clearly in awe. "Why
doesn't he run?"
Umak trembled. With Li clinging to him, he was
ashamed. Whatever he had previously felt about his
brother was forgotten. He had just seen Manavarak
risk his life to save his child. During the night, he
had seen Manaravak do the same for
Larani. A new understanding of his twin dawned within
him. "He has not come
to join
the wanawut. He has come to kill them or die in
the attempt."
"Never!" Torka, sharing Umak's insight, loosed
a raging war cry and burst into a run, brandishing his
spears at the beasts that were attacking his son.
Without hesitation Umak passed Li to Simu8and
ran after his father.
Simu's blood was up for killing, not for
baby-sitting, but Umak had not given him a chance
to refuse the child. He sighed, acknowledging the fact that
he was stuck with her.
"Manaravak is of their blood, not ours," Dak
told his father. "You have been right all along. Their
ways are not our ways. Let them forgive and defend
him if they wish. I cannot. Nor will I make a
move to help them now."
Simu was surprised and pleased that Dak had chosen
to speak to him again; but he was also disconcerted by his
son's hardness of heart and sudden willingness to agree
with his past position at the very moment when he had set
himself to change it.
"If what I have seen Manaravak do this
night is an indication of what "they" are,"
Simu said, "then from this day forth I will call myself one
of them and never again look back. A man who has the
courage and the honor to risk all to make
amends for past wrongs-that is a man I would call
Brother in any camp, in any band. I am proud
to know that the blood of Manaravak's ancestors
flows through his sister into my new child. He has proved
at last that he is a true son of Torka! If
you cannot see this, then take care of Li so I may
help my band brothers. I have always wanted to send a
spear after one of those hairy, man-slaying,
woman-killing-was
"They can kill every wanawut in the world if they want.
It will not restore life to Demmi."
Simu eyed his son thoughtfully, sadly. "Nor will
the death of Manaravak." With this said, he
transferred Li into Dak's arms and ran into the
hollow.
Surrounded by snarling, snapping dogs andwiththe
prospect of a "pack" of spear-wielding hunters
about to descend upon them, the wanawut turned and fled.
Torka and Umak raced after them, past
Manaravak, and with Simu following, eagerly took
up die pursuit.
"Wait!" Manaravak's imperative call brought
them to a pause.
Torka, heart pounding and blood up for the hunt,
turned to see that Manaravak had retrieved his
spear. The effort had cost him. He looked
exhausted beyond measure. Nevertheless, there was a strength
of purpose to his voice that could not be denied. "This
kill must be mine."
"You are in no condition to kill anything except
yourself,"
responded Umak.
"Be it so, then. If I am ever to be son or
brother or man of the People, this kill
must
be mine."
Umak's eyes narrowed.
Torka appraised the shaman watchfully. Enmity
still pulled at Umak's face and mind. But a
brother was a brother, and a twin was even more than that.
A sigh of relief went out of the headman when Umak
nodded and extended his hand.
"Come, then, Brother," said Umak. "We will hunt
these beasts and kill them together."
"No, Shaman." Manaravak refused his
brother's hand. "I must hunt for Yona,
for Tankh, and for Demmi."
Simu was incredulous. "But Li and Larani are
alive because of you! You have proved that your heart is with
your people."
"It is not enough." Manaravak's eyes were fixed
on the country into which the wanawut had fled.
"You have been injured, Manaravak." Even as
Torka spoke he knew that his words were falling on
deaf ears. "You are only one man, with the use of
only one arm. You cannot hope to win without our help!"
"I cannot win
with
it!" cried Manaravak. "Go now. Return to the
encampment, mourn the dead, and leave me to do what I
must do-what, perhaps, I was born to do-alone."
"You ask too much of me, Manaravak," said
Umak. "You were not born "alone." In the belly
of our mother we took life together. I feel your spirit
locked tight within the fiber of my own life. I cannot
stand back and watch you go to certain death."
A moment that seemed an eternity passed.
"I ask no more than what is my right as a man of the
People," Manaravak said quietly. "I have no
woman, no children, who will go hungry if I am not
alive to hunt for them. The right to hunt
alone is mine, as is the right to live on my own
terms and to choose the manner of my own death if it
comes to that."
"And if you fail?" pressed Simu.
"Look to the south, to the land beyond the mountains, and take
the People there. I will be waiting, for it will be in that good
country that my spirit will walk the wind forever!"
And so Manaravak left the hunters and the dogs and
pursued the wanawut. He paused only long enough
to cleanse his wounds with water from the icy stream, pack
them with moisture-absorbing lichens, and bind his arm
tightly with the leather thong of his brow band. He drank
deeply before going on. He had lost a great deal of
blood; the water seemed to drive back his
weakness-or perhaps it was the pure, dark blood of
resolve that strengthened him and drove him on. His
arm ached mercilessly, but he willed himself to ignore
the pain.
He did not know how far he had walked before he
came upon the beasts. The sun had risen and set.
He stared up into a night of extraordinary clarity
and beauty. Had the stars ever been so bright, so
close, as though he could reach up and set his hand
to them?
For a long while he hunkered in silence,
watching from high ground . . . waiting. The beasts
slept within a thicket of wormwood. Only
another wanawut would have thought to look for them within the
low, broken scrub growth of fragrant
artemisia that not only concealed their shapes but masked
their scent.
"No more ..." Manaravak whispered his repudiation
of kinship with them to the wind and the night and to all the spirits
of this world and the next. "I am a man!" he cried,
and when his first spear flew from his hand, its point
reflected the light of the stars and sparkled as though it
were a piece of the sky flaming across the night. It
carried his cry as it arced high. With all the power of the
man behind it, when it fell to earth it struck true.
The larger wanawut, impaled straight through the
heart, collapsed without a sound. Its companion
rose and, as it turned, saw Manaravak standing
silhouetted against the starlit night.
"For Demmi!" His second spear flew. "For
Yona! For Tankh! For Nauru!"
The beast had no time to react as the projectile
point cut through its chest, pierced its heart, and
sliced straight through its body. The animal staggered
backward, and as it died it heard the sounding of its own
kind until the howling became the anguished
cry of a man.

Nothing would ever be the same again.
Torka knew it in his heart as he lay awake in
the darkness of his hut and listened to the autumn wind and the
high, distant honkings of migratory birds winging
across the face of the moon. He could not sleep.
Demmi's death had made an empty place in his
spirit that allowed him no rest. He tried to ease his
mind by taking Lonit's oft-given advice and being
grateful for what was instead of longing for what might have
been.
Manaravak had come back to his people with his spirit no
longer belonging to the beasts of the wild. He was wholly
a man-albeit a sadder and wiser one. The wounds in
his arm were healing, as was the tension that had existed for too
long between Umak and him.
Naya was a changed woman. She avoided
Manaravak and tended his injured arm only when in the
company of other women. Silent and circumspect,
she was subservient to her elders and obedient to Umak
in all things . . . and yet Torka could not stand the
sight of her. He hated the girl. He could never
forgive her for rendering his people vulnerable to predators
on the night of the
plaku,
nor could he ever forget the sight of her dancing naked
and spreading herself wide before his sons.
His eyes half closed in the darkness. It was only
for old Grek's sake, and Umak's-who seemed
able to forgive her anything-that he refrained from putting
her out of the band. The time was no longer right for it. He
could not bring himself to cast yet another shadow upon his people
when they still had to recover from the tragedies of the past
few days.
The birth of Demmit had given heart to Dak and
had drawn all the members of the band closer in their
need to nurture this new life that had come to them through
such appalling death and terror. How Demmi would have
laughed to see her own irascible spirit squalling up
at her out of a miniature version of Dak's face!
Everyone agreed that the baby girl was Demmi's
gift to the band, a statement of life everlasting, and a
promise of better days to come. . . . And yet,
somehow, as Torka closed his eyes and heard the
strident, healthy fussing of his new granddaughter
waking up the band, he felt too much a part of the past
to visualize the future.
A terrible feeling of desolation filled him, but he
shrugged it off. It was not in his nature
to brood-nevertheless, he had been doing nothing but that
lately. Thinking of the way in which his daughter had
died, he brooded some more.
The trumpeting of the mammoth jarred him from the edge of
sleep. He was glad that his totem was still with him,
keeping him from dreams that were too full of the past,
too full of blood and death. He wanted no part
of them. They made him feel old.
"Too many ghosts!" he declared, and as Lonit
awakened and watched him in silence out of understanding
eyes, he rose, took up his spear, and went out
into the night, to walk the peripheries of the encampment
alone. He strode up and down the river, seeking the
mammoth and following it east
ward, as far as the cold, bleak terminal moraines
at the flanks of the mile-high, impenetrable eastern
glaciers.
"Why do you lead me here, old friend? This is the end
of the world, not the beginning."
The mammoth huffed and shook its head, then turned and
plodded back toward the river.
In the cold, bitter night shadows of the Mountains
That Walk, Torka smiled for the first time in longer
than he could remember. He raised his spear in
gratitude to the message of his totem.
"I understand. I thank you. I will obey."
And the next day, under the shadowing wings of migrating
waterfowl, he urged his people to break camp and
relocate farther upriver.
"We must put the past behind us. In our new camp
we will wait for the Great Mad River to freeze. In
our new camp we will prepare for the long trek
south."
Under clear, cold, wind-whipped skies, as the People
assembled their sledges and ice walkers in preparation
for long, dark days of winter travel, the land around the
Great Mad River burned with the raw, savage
colors of autumn.
Larani stood apart from the other women as they gathered
dried grasses and lichens that would be used as kindling
for winter fires. She caught her breath.
Memories flamed within her as she stood up and stared
at storm clouds gathering to the east.
"Be at ease, Daughter of the Sky. Those clouds
have no lightning in them. There will be snow before
nightfall, but no fire."
Larani turned. Manaravak was coming toward her.
Again she caught her breath. He was not walking! He
was sitting astride the colt and raising his bandaged arm
in greeting as the wind blew his unplaited
hair from his face. As he came closer he leaned
back sightly. The redistribution of his weight
seemed to trigger an unspoken communication to the young
horse, for it paused. Larani's eyes widened.
Manaravak smiled. "It is good!" he
exclaimed, patting the neck of the animal with his hand.
"If Daughter of the Sky grows weary walking across
the river in the time of the long dark, Horse will carry
her."
Her eyes grew wider still. "What did you call
me?"
"Daughter of the Sky!"
She flinched, certain that he was making fun of her.
Her features hardened defensively. How
magnificent he was, with the claw marks of the great
bear marking his face with smooth, linear scars that
enhanced his features rather than detracted from them-not like
her own scars.
Shame made her blush. She wished that she had
turned away, but it did no good to try to conceal her
scarring. He had seen it all before, and now, with only
a stubble of hair left, her scalp was bare to the
sun-half of it a cap of thick, ropy scars that
extended around her ear and across the side of her face
like purple fingers. Her lips tightened.
How she hated her scars! And now, perversely, she
hated him as she remembered his kiss and his
embrace. They had been things that a man did when
he thought that he was about to die. They had nothing to do with
now. Nothing.
"I am not the only one to carry scars," she
reminded him coldly. "If I am Daughter of the
Sky, then you must be Three Paws, for the great bear
marked you well!"
He touched his face. "Yes, it is so. The forces
of Creation have put their mark upon the son of Torka
and the daughter of Simu."
Bitterness touched her. "Aren't we the lucky
ones!"
His eyes narrowed and he observed her thoughtfully.
"I have thought of you much, Daughter of the Sky. You
look like fireweed in sunlight, and you are as
strong."
Larani was certain that he had to be mocking her.
Fireweed, indeed! "I
am
strong," she conceded, and hated the defensive,
acidic sound of her own voice.
"And you are also Grek's woman!" Grek shouted
angrily, possessively.
Startled, Larani turned back to see the old man
stalking forward through the tall grasses like a breathy
bison doing its best to charge despite the
infirmities of age. By the time he paused before her,
panting and wheezing in a cloud created by his hot
breath condensing in the cold air, Manaravak and the
horse were gone, trotting off to circle the
encampment, with Jhon and Sayanah racing behind and every
member of the band staring in amazement at the sight of a
man riding upon the back of an animal.
"He said he would do it. No one believed it, but
look at him, Grek!"
"You are my woman, Larani!" His tone was harsh,
his big hand hurtful as it closed on her wrist and
jerked her around to face him. Never before had he been
angry with her, but he was angry now.
"Yes, Grek," she affirmed, surprised by his
jealousy but not offended by it. "I am your woman."
Who else would have me?
she thought.
Then she frowned, suddenly worried. His face was
gray, his eyes sunken, his lips dry and ashy and
somehow blue. He was clearly exhausted, and yet
he had just chased off a man half his years.
Tears stung beneath her lids.
Poor Grek.
She worked her wrist free and slipped her arm through the
crook of his. "I am proud to be the woman of
Old Lion . . . and prouder still to hear you roar for
me!"
His features wrinkled with disbelief. "Yes?"
"Yes!" she told him, and knew that it was a truth
half told. There was too much pity in her pride:
pity for the old man, pity for herself. In that pity lived
the ache of longing for what could never be ... for a young
man on horseback, with the wind in his hair, and his
sudden bursts of joyous laughter a song that echoed
through every part of her being.
"Hmmph!"
the old man snorted, pausing to look back.
Larani followed his gaze. Manaravak and the colt
were still being chased by Sayanah, Jhon, and the dogs.
The boys laughed with boisterous merriment as they made
grabs for the horse's tail. Jhon made good on
his effort. The horse nickered in protest and pranced
briefly in place, then turned so quickly that the son
of Umak lost his hold and went down on his
buttocks. Sayanah guffawed at his expense.
In that moment, Manaravak kneed the colt, and just as
it burst forward into a run, he leaned down
and, with his good arm, whisked Sayanah off his feet.
"Manaravak!"
Larani heard Lonit cry out in dismay, but in
less time than it took her to blink, Sayanah was
swung up and around onto the colt's back.
Breathless with delight, the boy waved
triumphantly at the astonished onlookers. An
exclamation of approval went up from everyone.
Larani found herself smiling. Never had she seen
anything so wonderful!
But when Manaravak kneed the horse into a tight
turn, Sayanah slipped over the horse's rump
to land hard on his
buttocks right next to Jhon. Now it was Jhon's
turn to guffaw at Sayanah's expense.
Unfailingly good-natured, Sayanah, unhurt,
shrugged sheepishly. The two boys helped each
other to their feet, and everyone was laughing as the dogs
ran in to knock them down again.
Grek grimaced with begrudging approval. "It is
a good thing to hear laughter among this people once again. But
look at Umak. See how tightly he holds
Naya to him? He is still jealous of his brother."
Larani did not reply. At this moment she did not
care about Naya or Umak. She was
looking at Manaravak-loving him, wanting him, and
trying to blink away her tears of desire.
"Why do you cry?" he asked, leaning down, scowling
with concern.
"The wind," she lied. "It must have blown something
into my eyes."
He looked around, nodding. "Yes, the wind has
turned. It speaks of weather. Come, let us get out
of the cold and leave the "children" to their games."
It snowed that night-cold, granular snow that beat a
triumphal fanfare for the arrival of winter. The
next morning, the women found it necessary to crack through a
layer of ice before they could drag their woven sinew
nets through the bone-chilling water to collect sluggish
fish that had become entrapped in the new stone
weirs. When the children went to check the ptarmigan
traps, they had to look doubly close, for the
recently acquired winter-white plumage hid the
birds well within the snow. The men of the band slipped
soft leather linings of duck down into their boots and
donned hooded outercoats of sealskin made in the
camp beside the Lake of Watered Blood.
Days passed. Nights grew long. Despite a
cold, dank weather pattern of rain and snow,
Manaravak continued to work with the colt,
patiently training it to accept the weight of side
packs and the drag of a sledge. Simu and the boys were
always eager to help him.
The People settled into a snug, warm camp of small,
individual family shelters and waited for the river
to freeze. When the morale-eating spirits of boredom
began to settle upon the band, Torka commanded the
raising of a communal lodge in which everyone could gather
to pass the time with
games and song and general conviviality; but he soon
discovered that the ghosts that he had felt lingering in the
last encampment had followed them to this one.
In the low, greasy light of the central fire pit,
with the aromas of roasting fish, fowl, and moose mingling
with those of dripping fat and burned tundra! sods,
he would find himself looking across the flames to see
Demmi and Yona smiling at him from among the other
women and girls. He would blink, and they would
vanish, but they always came back. And when Chuk
pitted himself against both Sayanah and Jhon in a
rousing bout of wrestling, Torka saw Tankh and
Nantu standing close to Grek, cheering alongside the
old man.
It was impossible to keep the ghosts away. After a
while, he no longer winced when he saw
them. The time came when he actually welcomed their
presence. He began to think that when a man had lived
long enough, the dead became as much a part of him as the
living.
He nodded, content with the moment, andwiththe night and the sound
of the wind blowing across the world outside the communal
hut. His beloved Lonit answered the request of the
gathering by telling a story. While his people were carried
away on the wondrous tide of their imagination,
Torka went to his lean-to and returned with the
halves of his broken bludgeon and the small skin
bag in which he kept his incising tools. There were new
details to be carved into the old bone weapon: the
happy addition of a new member to the band as well as
the tragic deletion of others. Slowly, quietly,
he took out his tools and sought to occupy his hands with this
useful and necessary work while the tale telling went on
... but there was barely any room at all.
Troubled, he tried not to recall the incident that had
shattered the once magnificent weapon or to be
upset that there was barely room enough to carve the barest
essentials into the time-yellowed surface. He set
to work, and after a moment, he looked up and smiled.
The ghosts were watching him with approval, and Lonit,
seeing what he was doing, began to recount the
coming of the People across the Sea of Ice.
On and on went the tale, with Sayanah urging "m"
until, at last, Lonit told of how Torka
had led the People into the Forbidden Land, where the wanawut
had been waiting.
"No!" protested Summer Moon, nursing a
baby at each breast. "That is too sad to tell.
I do not want to hear it."
"Nor do I," agreed Swan. "Tell us a
story that will make us smile, Mother."
"Wait." Torka's contentment was shattered. "What
are you saying, Daughters?"
Swan shrugged. "Only that this has been a happy
night. I do not want to hear a story that will make
me sad."
Summer Moon nodded. "These last days have given us
enough sadness to last us the rest of our lives. I do not
want to hear about them again!"
"But you must remember!" Torka was adamant.
"If not for yourself, then for the little ones. When their children's
children ask how they came into the new country beyond the
Great Mad River, they will know how it was with us-who
we were, why and how we came, and what we endured
to keep the People strong."
Silence fell.
"Tell the story, Woman of My Heart," commanded
Torka gently.
"But Torka ..." She paused. To refuse the
command of her man in the presence of others was
unthinkable. Yet when her eyes met his, they
spoke the criticism that her lips would not form.
It is too soon. The wounds have only just begun
to heal. Do not open them again.
He ignored her. "Tell it now so we will not
forget. It
is
a sad story, but it is also a story of love and
bravery and sacrifice."
And so it was told. By the time the last word was spoken
and the sputtering flames had died, Torka knew that
he had made a mistake. He should have heeded the
warning in Lonit's eyes. It was much too soon
for the tale to be told. She had done her best
to soften it, to make it seem as though it had all
happened to people who lived long ago and far away, but
her listeners knew better.
Li quivered against recollections too terrible for
such a young child to recall. Uni sobbed that she missed
Yona. Jhon and Sayanah grimly looked at
Chuk and remembered how his brother had
died. The adults grew somber and reflective,
and when Grek moaned in a tragic exhalation of
grief, Naya lay her face upon her knees lest
the others see her shame and sorrow. Umak's eyes
narrowed resentfully at the sight of her discomfort,
then widened with ill-contained rage when he saw that
Manaravak was looking at her. A twisted look of
longing for Demmi distorted Dak's face, and only
when Swan lovingly reached across the fire to place his
newborn daughter into his arms did his features
relax a little-but then he glared at Manaravak, with
all of the old hatred back in his eyes.
Torka flinched when he saw Dak's look, and at
the way that Umak was glowering at Manaravak, who,
in turn, was staring openly at Naya. Suddenly, the
headman's hatred for the girl congealed into pure
loathing.
"I wonder if the shores along the Lake of
Watered Blood are still rich with meat?" asked
Umak, staring at his twin.
Although the shaman's query seemed off the subject,
Torka knew that it was not. It was a deliberate
prod, perfectly placed. He looked at his
eldest son and was furious with him.
"That land is far away," Torka said.
"It was bad country. Death walked in the wind and
swam in its restless waters. The great mammoth did
not browse in it, nor were my lost children there!"
"No." Umak was looking at Torka now. "They
were
here,
with your totem and the wanawut. Death walks in this
land, too, Father-worse than anything we encountered in
the country to the north. If we had stayed by the Lake
of Watered Blood, we-was
"We could not stay. Your Visions should have shown us that,
but they did not-any more than they spoke truly of the
fate of your brother and sister or gave warning to us
of the coming of the wanawut!"
Umak was shocked by his father's open hostility. "I
... the Seeing Wind ... it comes to a man as it will.
I cannot-was
"No! Your ability to commune with the spirits has been
weakened by another magic.
Her
magic." He pointed at Naya. "Because of her you
have failed us, Shaman. And do not look at me like
that. It is the truth, and you know it-as do you, Grek."
Naya looked up, bewildered, as Torka continued.
"Speak no more to me of the Lake of Watered
Blood. I am headman. This band walks where I
say, where
my
"vision" leads! We follow Life Giver, and
we will not look back. We look ahead to the new
country that lies to the south."
Umak was shaking in his attempt to maintain control.
"A country that we have never seen."
"7 have seen it!" Manaravak's tone was guarded,
uncertain.
"That is enough for me!" declared Torka.
Umak jumped to his feet. "Is it? Will you name
him Shaman then?"
His words stunned the already shaken gathering.
"Torka?" There was a plea for reason in
Lonit's voice.
TorkaAvas staring at Umak. He knew that he
had shamed his son. He saw the hurt on the young
man's face, and all his instincts screamed at him
to moderate his words and ease the pain that he had
inflicted. Somehow he could not. His words had been
spoken in anger, but they had also been the truth. "The
forces of Creation name a man Shaman, Umak; I
do not. It was Life Giver who saved Manaravak
and, with Demmi, showed him the way to the new
country to the south so that he might return to his people and
lead us there."
Manaravak was openly amazed by the dispute. "I have
no wish to be Shaman, Father," he protested.
"Please sit down, Brother, I-was
"Do not tell me what to do! Come, Naya. I will not
have you insulted. Jhon, help your mother with Li. I
have had enough of this night's gathering."
"Go, then!" Torka shouted. "And consider yourself
lucky that you still have Naya at your side to be
insulted, for only a father's consideration for a son has
kept me from sending her out of this band to walk the wind
forever!"
Naya gasped.
Umak stiffened. "Send her away, and I will go with
her."
Torka had no doubt that the threat was real. Since
it had been made before the entire band, shame was on his
head if he allowed it to pass without taking action.
Torka was suddenly furious. The sight of Naya
standing wide-eyed and innocent enraged him further.
"That woman has brought bad luck to this people. She will
not cross the river with us into the new country!"
It was as though a bolt of lightning had exploded in
the midst of the gathering. Naya's hands flew
to her face. Grek looked as though someone had just
pierced him through the gut. Honee exclaimed in
dismay, and Manaravak looked at his father with
incredulity.
And Umak's face went blank with shock. It was as
though he had died right there on the spot and then,
instantaneously was reborn. "Is it so?" The question
was as cold as the darkest day in the dead of the coldest
winter.
Torka was suddenly tired. He had not wanted this.
Again the need to salve the situation was strong in him, but
by the time he framed the words needed to put it right,
Umak had turned and ushered his family out of the
communal hut.
"Umak! Brother! Wait!" Manaravak followed
him.
The hide weather baffle was still swaying from the force of his
hurried passage when all heard Umak's shout:
"Get out of my sight! By Father Above and Mother Below
and all the forces of this world and the next, how I
regret the day that I put myself into the path of Three
Paws and made the killing thrust to save your
life!"
There was absolute silence within the hut. Everyone
waited for Manaravak to return. When he
did not, Torka spoke again and tried hard not to show
how deeply upset he was. "We ... we will
talk more of this tomorrow."
"You cannot put my Naya out of the band," said Grek,
rising shakily as Chuk reached to support him.
Torka stared at the old man. He was so
appallingly shaken, so afraid, so clearly
devastated that, in fear of Grek's collapse,
Torka said, "I would not do anything to hurt you, old
friend, and certainly not without the calling of a council.
We will do that and talk more . . . tomorrow."
Grek repeated, "You will not put my Naya out of the
band."
Lonit forced a smile. "It is late. We are
all tired, and tempers have needlessly flared. We
should return to our own huts and get some sleep.
There have been enough words spoken for one night."
Torka was grateful. She had eased the strain of the
moment. But as he watched Larani and Chuk lead the
old man away while the others rose, unnerved, and
made their farewells, desolation stirred within his
bones. What had he done? Why had he done it?
As he remained sitting before the cooling embers of the
fire, he tried with all his heart not to compare Umak
and Manaravak to the broken halves of the
whalebone bludgeon that lay within his hands-a
bludgeon that he had shattered.
"Torka?"
He looked up. Lonit had risen, andwitha hand on
Sayanah's shoulder, she stood at the entrance to the
hut, waiting for him.
"Come, Man of My Heart."
"Later," he replied softly. "You go on
ahead."
"You aren't really going to make Naya walk the
wind, are you, Father?" asked Sayanah.
"Go, boy. Take your mother back to our hut."
Sayanah hesitated until Lonit pressed his
shoulder and silently urged him to obey.
Torka did not move, could not move. For a long time
he remained alone, staring into the darkening gloom of the
now unlighted hut. But he was not alone. The ghosts
were back at the fire circle, but this time they were not
smiling.

That night while the People slept, the wind turned and
drove snow before it, and the first deep, true cold of
winter came down. The level of the Great Mad
River dropped. In the shallows, the ice was so
thick that it touched bottom. Soon the People
would be able to cross the waters and begin their journey
to the south-all the band except one family. Umak,
taking advantage of the snow to cover tracks, led
Naya, Honee, his children, Companion, Snow
Eater, and two of the younger dogs away from the
encampment. But first he paused and looked back upon
the huts of his friends and family.
"Father, please, I don't want to go!" Jhon
told him.
"Nor do I," Umak said, and silenced further
protests from the boy with a raised hand. "But we
must
go, for Naya's sake. There is no choice."
Jhon glared at Naya through the guard hairs of his
ruff. "It's your fault, all of it."
"No more from you!" Honee warned him. "We are more
than a family now; we are a band unto ourselves.
If we are to survive our trek to the Lake of
Watered Blood, there must be no dissent among us."
"We will survive," assured Umak. "The trek
is long, but it will be an easier journey over the
frozen barrens than across the bogs of summer."
Jhon growled with discontent. "We have not much food
with us. What if the legless animals have all gone
away and there is nothing to hunt or eat when
we get there?"
"I had a feeling we would return," Umak said.
"I have left caches of meat and fat, with hides
rolled tight around all that we will need to get us through
the winter."
Jhon was not mollified. "My friends are here. I
don't want to go! Why don't we just stay and let
Torka do what he-was
"No woman of mine will ever be cast out of the band while
I am able to prevent it. If Torka commands it,
I will stand against him. I will not shame him or myself
by such a confrontation-despite everything, he is my
father, and I love him. I would give my life for
him-but not Naya's. And so it is better to go."
Looking not much larger than a child in her heavy winter
traveling furs, Naya was sobbing softly. "I'm
sorry, Jhon. I have tried so hard to be a good and
obedient woman. I have thrown away my berries and
have told everyone that I am sorry about all that I have
caused. I have done everything that anyone has asked of
me. I don't understand why they can't forgive me."
Umak's reply was grim in its finality. "Some
things cannot be forgiven, Naya."
Her voice was broken and pathetic as she sniffed
back her tears. "C-can't you make some
m-magic to make them forget?"
"Manaravak has stolen the magic and turned
Torka and the People against our man with it!" exclaimed
Honee.
Li's voice was so fragile that the wind almost blew
it away. It was unfortunate that it did not succeed.
"Can't Manaravak and Horse come, too? I
love Manaravak, Father. He saved me from the
wanawut when yon did not!"
What came over Umak at that moment was jealousy,
hatred, and sibling rivalry gone mad. The words
of the child loosed a tide of rage in the man. At that
moment the horse nickered, drawing Umak's
attention. Slowly, purposefully, he walked
forward, gesturing for his family to wait. They did not
see him draw his dagger as he approached the
horse. With his back to Jhon, Umak stroked the
animal's snowy neck, and when the horse nickered
with pleasure and raised its head, he slit its
throat. He turned then and, with his dagger sheathed,
walked back to his waiting family and led them on
without a word. The dogs followed.
The shaman glanced back through the wind and falling snow
and saw the horse sink to its knees. It would die
alone, slowly, as Umak had intended ...
as he wished Manaravak would also die.
On and on they walked, and as the snow fell and the wind
blew hard from the north, Naya began to cry again.
"I am sorry, Umak."
"I know," he told her.
"If it means anything, I
do
love you."
"And I love you, Naya," he replied, but there was
a sadness and an inconsolable grief within his heart as
he spoke-for this love had cost him everything.
When Manaravak rose with the dawn to find Horse
dead and Umak's fire circle abandoned, he
understood immediately what his twin had done and why. With a
shout of rage, he took up his spears and followed.
Alerted by his cry, the others came out of their pit
huts to stand in the wind and snow, scanning the encampment
as comprehension of the unseen events dawned upon them.
Summer Moon's face was pale with dread. "They
will kill each other!"
Sayanah was on his knees, stroking the neck of the
dead horse. Tears ran down his face. "Why
did he do it?
How
could he do it? I will kill Umak myself for
this!"
"He is your brother!" Lonit scolded.
"No more!" The boy wept, flinging himself across the
body of the horse as though it were a beloved friend-for,
indeed, that was what it had become to him.
"Father, you must bring them back!" Swan pleaded.
"You must make Manaravak understand that what our
shaman did was done only out of anger and that you-was
"He is no shaman of mine!" retorted Simu.
Dak eyed his father sharply. "Would you have acted any
differently had you been insulted by the headman before the
entire band and told that your woman was to be
abandoned?"
Torka was stung by Dak's open repudiation, but before
he could respond, Simu snapped, "That woman
should have been abandoned many moons ago!"
"No!" Grek was having difficulty breathing. With
his bed furs drooping around his shoulders and the deformity
of his hunched back exposed beneath his hair, he came
stumbling barefoot from his hut. Larani called after
him, carrying his
shoes. He was oblivious to her. "My little Naya
. . . she is gone?"
"Yes, old friend," replied Torka. "Umak
has taken her and the rest of his family."
Grek's right arm pressed across his chest. He
seemed to be in pain, but his concentration was focused
entirely upon Naya's predicament. "We must
find her! We must bring Little Girl back! If
Manaravak and Umak fight, they will not yield
until one or both of them is dead. If both
die, who will look after my Naya? I must bring her
home!"
"Bring Naya back into this encampment, Old Man,
and I will personally wring her neck and yours!" warned
Simu. "Can't you see it even now? Do you think
Manaravak is slogging out in this weather to spear
Umak for killing a horse or because of a few hot
words? By the forces of Creation, man, he's after
Naya-after your bad-luck, sniveling little
granddaughter! There's bad blood in that girl! There
was from the start!"
Simu did not expect the hard right that uncoiled from
Grek's armpit. It contained all of what was left
of the old man's strength. Had the effort not taken
Grek off balance and knocked him down, it would have
done more than glance a stunning blow off Simu's
left cheek. As it was, Simu cried out in pain
as he grabbed at his jaw and was spun around and nearly
off his feet by the considerable force of the
impact.
On the ground and gasping for breath, Grek was wheezing
like a dying ox. Chuk and Larani ran to his side.
"You touch my grandfather again, and you'll regret it,
Simu!" Chuk threatened.
"Me? Touch him? The old bison dropped himself in
the snow! Don't look at me to blame! I'm the
one he punched, and if he tries it again, I'll-was
"You'll what?" Larani snarled at her father as she
knelt protectively over Grek and pulled the
old man's furs around his shoulders. "Get away
from us, you miserable, unforgiving, grudge-nurturing
excuse for a man!"
Simu gasped in shock at his daughter's words.
It was Lonit who put order into the moment. She
came stomping out of her family pit hut, wearing
half-laced winter moccasins and her traveling
coat. Her snow prod and walkers were strapped to her
back, her mittens strung to her belt, her dagger
sheathed at her side, and her bola in her hands. From
the way she was stretching the thongs, she looked
ready to use the weapon against anyone who got in her
way. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I am
going to pack a few traveling rations and go after my
sons. Someone has to stop them from killing
each other! You men can stay here and squabble with
Larani and my daughters if you like! As for this
woman, I am going to try to talk some sense into my
sons . . . if they have any sense left!"
They would have left Grek in charge of the women and children,
but this time he would not allow it.
"Little Girl is out there! I will go!"
"And if you slow us down on the trail, Old
Man?" Simu asked.
"Then go without me. But know that if you do, I
will
follow, even if I must abandon the women and children.
Where my Naya is, there also will be Grek to see that
she comes to no harm."
"She is with Umak, old friend," assured Torka.
"Nothing will happen to her as long as she is with him."
Grek measured the headman out of old and weary
eyes. "No, I know Umak will not hurt her. It
is not the shaman I fear or even Manaravak. It
is Simu. And it is you, Torka. It is you."
And so Dak agreed to be the woman watcher while
Torka led the others off into the wind and snow. They
moved quickly, certain that Umak would be headed back
toward the Lake of Watered Blood-and equally
certain that they must find him before Manaravak
did.
No one knew just when Larani joined them. By the time
her fur-clad figure was noticed striding along
behind, it was too late to send her back.
"Why are you here, woman?" Grek was not pleased
to see her. "I do not need you on this trek!"
"It is growing so much colder. I could not think of the
coming night without shivering at the thought of trying to sleep
without you beside me. I will not slow you down, and I will not
complain."
She was as good as her word. Like Lonit, she matched
the men stride for stride. Grek seemed to have found
an inner well of strength until, several hours out
from camp, it began to run dry. But by then the wind had
risen to a gale,
and the snow was driving so hard that they could not see their
hands in front of their faces and were forced to stop.
"Why did you follow, Larani?" Torka took the
young woman aside as they prepared to raise shelters
against the storm.
"He is old," she said of Grek. "Older than
he knows. If he falters, you will have to leave him.
I would not have him endure that shame alone. I will be
there for him so that you may go on for the sake of your sons
. . . and for the People, so that they might become
one again."
With Lonit bundled close beside Torka beneath the
combined warmth of their traveling robes, the headman
slept in a hollow that he had dug into the snow, with his
back curled tightly to the wind.
He was not certain exactly what wakened him. He
had no idea how much time had passed since his
fellow travelers and he had stopped and made a
temporary refuge against the storm. He lay
awake. The howling beat of the wind was as bitter as his
mood. Where was Manaravak? Was Umak safe from his
own brother? Had the wanawut in Manaravak's spirit
not been killed, after all?
Torka shivered. The ghosts were with him again, and
Larani's words were a haunting that ate away at his
last hope of returning to sleep: For
the sake of your sons . . . and for the People, so that they
might become one again.
The image of his broken bludgeon filled his mind.
Some things, once broken, could not be made whole
again. Restless, he moved out from beneath the weight of the
two robes and, still fully clothed, yielded to the
need to walk, to move about, to cast off the ghosts. But
they would not be cast away. The all-too-familiar
desolation swept his soul as the spirits of the
dead seemed to ride the wind around him and within him. So
many ghosts! So many beloved faces!
With a start, he imagined Naya among them . . .
small and wide-eyed and as confused as she had been
on the night he had condemned her in the communal
hut. Worse, he himself had created the situation that
allowed for enmity between his sons. In his gladness to have his
long-lost son at his side, he had been too
lenient with Manaravak in those first years home,
allowing this wild twin to display behavior that he would
never have tolerated in Umak. When he had at last
seen the error of his ways and had attempted to make
amends, it had been too late, and his failure
to deal with Naya's mindless flirtatiousness had
driven the final wedge between them.
He had also sanctioned the mating of Umak and Naya
while a kernel of doubt existed regarding Umak's
paternity. If Navahk had been Umak's father and
Naya's grandfather, then a taboo had been broken,
and perhaps all that had happened to the People since then was
payment exacted by the spirits.
With a clarity of mind that he had not experienced in many
years, he reproached and vilified himself. He was
sickened with the realization of how many drastic errors in
judgment he had committed since Three
Paws had walked across the autumn tundra and
into his life. He closed his eyes, not wanting
to remember the mistakes, the deaths, the injuries-
and yet how could he forget? In less than the rising
and setting of a single sun he had made enemies of
his sons again, condemned a young woman to death, and set
the people of his band at odds. "It is I, not Naya,
who should be set out from among the People to walk the wind
forever," he said.
The wind shifted. He paused. Something had crested
one of the hills before him. It was a towering,
snow-covered mountain of living power. Huge and
silent, it filled him with awe. Torka moved
forward and did not stop until he and the mammoth stood
face to face. Life Giver huffed, extended its
trunk, and breathed upon him, swaying softly.
Torka raised his hands and touched the tusks of the great
totem. How worn they were, how discolored and
cracked and worn away at the tips. "You grow
old, Life Giver, as old as this hill upon which we
stand ... as old as the wind and the sky ... as old as
this man who stands before you." Was this what it was to be
old? Was this what Grek felt and fought against? "When
does it end for us ... where . . . how?" he asked
the mammoth. "For how many moons must we
walk among the living and see them die? How many of
your children do you grieve for, old friend? And for how many
moons have I heard you calling in my dreams . . .
summoning . . . always to the east. But to what? And why
do my sons tear me apart in their need to lead me to the
north and to the south? I am only one man, and
unlike a whalebone bludgeon, I cannot be broken
in two and still survive!"
The mammoth huffed again, but not gently this time.
Triumphantly it raised its tusks skyward.
It shook its twin-domed, shaggy head as though in
affirmation of Torka's dis-
tress, and then it turned and walked away,
eastward, toward the soaring, lifeless mountains of ice
that stretched away toward the place of the rising sun.
Torka was suddenly cold to the very marrow of his spirit as
a wondrous and terrifying understanding dawned upon him.
The coldness became euphoria as he threw back
his head and shouted aloud to the wind and the sky and to all the
spirits of this world and the world beyond this world.
"For the sake of my sons and for the People, the bludgeon
has been broken. And by this breaking-
only
by this breaking-will a solution be presented to the People!"
"Torka?" He whirled around.
"I heard the mammoth," Lonit said, coming up behind
him. "The others have been awakened, too, and are
eager to go on. But the words you cried out just now . . .
what did they mean?"
He was smiling when he walked to meet her, and as he
slung a loving arm around her shoulders and drew her
near he felt young again for the first time in more moons than
he could remember. "You will see, Woman of My
Heart! Soon now!"
It was said in the days to come that everything that happened after
this was a gift of the spirits, for a white hare appeared in
the snow on the hill after the mammoth walked away.
It had bright black eyes and burn scars on its
ears. Torka smiled when he saw it. He knew
that it would lead him to Manaravak . . . and it did.
"My son, I ask you to set down your spears and
return to the encampment by the Great Mad River. I
ask you to trust in the wisdom of one who has not always
been wise."
Manaravak sensed the change in his father. His eyes
narrowed warily. "I will not forgive or forget what
my brother has done."
"I would ask that of no man."
Three days later, alone by his own command, Torka
caught up with Umak and his family and
posed the same question.
"I will not walk with a people who threaten the life of my
woman," replied Umak coldly. "Nor will I
live again in the same camp with a brother who cannot
look at her except with hungry eyes."
"I do not ask this of you, and never again will you hear
me-or any other man in your band-speak against
Naya."
Umak's expression registered disbelief.
Torka met his gaze squarely, unflinchingly.
"In the past I have spoken against you, Umak, but I
have never lied to you." He paused. The old doubt about
Umak's paternity was there, but only for a moment.
What did it matter now? The mammoth had led him
through all that, and now in the light of a new understanding, he
reached out and laid his hand upon Umak's shoulder. "You
are
my son, Shaman," he repeated. "I ask for your
trust. I ask for you to send the Vision into my spirit so
that you may know that I speak with a true heart.
Return with me to the camp above the Great Mad
River-for just a little while."
And so it was that beneath a clear, cold sky, the People of
Torka stood on two sides of the high, hot
fire that the headman raised with his own hands.
Manaravak and Umak did not look at one
another. Naya stood close to Honee with her head
down and her eyes staring straight at the ground. No
one spoke-not even the ghosts around the fire.
Torka knelt and lifted the sheath that held his
bludgeon. He drew the weapon out, holding it so
that it emerged as one piece, and then, with great
solemnity, he took a half in each hand and held
them out-one to Umak, the other to Manaravak.
"Now!" he declared. "For the last time is Torka
headman of his people! From this moment the People must walk
separate paths and seek new ways in new lands.
Umak and those who will choose to walk with him will go to the
north. Manaravak and his followers will trek to the
south after the great Mammoth."
Lonit cried out in despair. "No, Man of
My Heart! The People are one!"
"But, Torka, what of you?" Grek was openly
confused.
"I will follow the mammoth, as I have always done."
There was not a member of the band who was not stunned by what
had just occurred.
"Lest enmity divide us forever, this must be so,"
Torka told them. "The coming generations must be strong,
and the many will remember the song of the few-of
how, in time
beyond beginning, a hunter named Torka and a woman
named Lonit were Father and Mother of generations as they
walked across the Sea of Ice and through the Corridor
of Storms to make a new people within this Forbidden Land!"
For a long while the People stood in shocked silence
until the headman spoke again, to ease their fear and
answer their questions.
"Once each year, when the tundra burns with the
colors of autumn, the People will convene in this camp beside
the Great Mad River. Here the children from the south and
north will join together as brothers and sisters. Here the
storytellers will share the new tales. The headmen will
join in peace, set aside whatever dissent once
turned their hearts against each other, and tell the old
tales. From this day the headmen will keep the halves
of the bludgeon sacred so that whenever men and women of the
People gather to sing the life song that is carved into the
bone, there will Torka be ... and all of you, alive
with Demmi and Tankh and Yona, with Wallah and
lana and Nantu and Eneela, and with all those who have
walked with us out of the country of our ancestors and into the
new land."
For a long while the People remained in silence around the
fire. Not until the flames had begun
to die down did Torka insist that the time had come for
his "children" to decide who would walk with whom.
"I will take Swan, Kharn, and Demmit and
walk with Umak," said Dak, his announcement coming as
no surprise to anyone but Umak.
"I thought you had lost faith in my shaman's
magic!"
"What does faith in magic have to do with faith in a
friend?" Dak wanted to know.
Simu frowned in thought, then, with a shrug, threw in his
lot with Manaravak. "I'm not sure what sort
of a headman an ex-wanawut will make, but I
won't walk with a band that has Naya in it if I have
a choice!"
"But Simu ..." Swan was visibly upset.
"If you and Summer Moon do not come with Umak, where
will I get milk for Demmit?"
Dak's face tightened. "I will not walk with
Manaravak- not after I saw him stand by while my
Demmi was killed by beasts."
"I will take the baby if you wish . . . until
next autumn," volunteered Summer Moon.
Dak thought for a long moment before he agreed.
"Until next autumn."
"I, too, will walk with Umak," said
Grek. "I cannot be in a band separate from Naya."
His decision prompted a stifled intake of
Larani's breath and a look of disappointment on her
face-and on Manaravak's. But Larani nodded and
worked hard to make a cheerful smile for him.
"I walk with Grek. It does not matter where. I
am his woman."
The old man harrumphed, then told her to pack their
things. As she walked
oSo
obediently to do as she was told, his face twisted
into a jealous scowl. There was no missing the guarded
look of longing that transformed Manaravak's face
as his eyes followed Larani.
It took time to break down the pit huts and assemble
everyone's traveling supplies. When the last
tearful goodbyes were finally said, when the sledges were
loaded and the dogs were under harness, a grim-faced
Umak led his followers away from the Great Mad
River-but not before Naya suddenly turned on her
heels and ran back across the encampment
to Manaravak.
"For you!" she declared. Not caring who saw her or what
they thought, she stood on her tiptoes to plant a
kiss on his cheek. Then she pressed a
gift in his palm. "Here. This is yours. I
return it to you. May it bring you luck and happiness
in the new land across the river!"
"Naya!" Umak's roar pricked the fine hairs
at the base of her neck.
She knew that he was coming after her. She heard the
gasps rise from the band and felt Manaravak stiffen
as, with his two strong hands upon her waist, he set
her aside and made ready for his brother to attack
him.
"No!" Naya cried. Not quite certain what had come
over her, she placed both hands on her hips, and with
her feet planted squarely apart, she turned
to face her man. "You must not do this, either of you! You
must try to love each other again!"
Umak stopped in his tracks.
Naya was frightened, but a strange and pleasant calm
was coming over her. "Please, Umak, I only wish
to say good-bye to a "brother" for whom I have
caused a great deal of trouble. Regardless of what
has happened between us, I am
your
woman, Umak!" She walked forward, stood on
tiptoes again, took his face in her hands, and
kissed him on the mouth. "Although why you still
want a fearful, silly girl like me, I really do
not know!"
"Nor do I!" he exclaimed with a scowl, but he
kissed her back-a kiss that made Uni, Li,
and the boys giggle.
Naya stepped back and smiled. She cocked her
head as she looked at him and, with a start, realized
how much she loved him. "I am a much better
woman without my berries," she said. "I know what
I am doing now!"
"Do you?" he pressed.
"Yes," she replied. "I do. And I will try
to be a good woman for you from this time on."
"Good luck to you on that one!" Simu called out, but
Umak did not hear him; he had taken Naya by the
hand, and as he led her away from the encampment he did
not look back.
For a day and a night, Umak led his band of followers
toward the distant Lake of Watered Blood. They
camped at dark and walked on at dawn. The next
night it snowed, and they raised lean-tos against the
weather.
Within the hide shelter of Grek, Larani lay
awake, listening to the wind plucking at the tent
thongs, to snowflakes scudding against the tent
cover, and to the old man sleeping soundly beside her.
She sighed. For once he was not snoring. She
closed her eyes, grateful for the silence and the song
of the wind and snow that lulled her to sleep. Her
dreams were of her girlhood, of long-gone days when
Swan and Naya and she had played together and had shared
the secret longings of their hearts.
"Manaravak ..."
Her dreams were full of him now-such fine dreams .
. . until Grek woke her.
"You have been a good woman for me, Larani."
She did not speak. She lay still, patiently
waiting for him to touch her, to begin to handle her in his
earnest, clumsy way-trying so hard to please them
both and never quite succeeding.
He did not move. "You did not want to walk with
me, did you, Larani?"
"I am your woman," she told him, although she
knew that he wanted to hear more than this from her.
He was quiet for a while; his breathing shallow,
strained. Then: "When the time of the long dark is over
and we journey back across the land to the Valley of the
Great Mad River, you will not be sorry to return
... to see him again?"
"Him?"
"You speak his name with longing in your dreams,
Larani."
He sounded so sad, so old-and so full of hope that
she would speak to prove him wrong. She turned
toward him and touched his face with loving hands. "I am
your woman, Old Lion. Whom else would I
walk with? Who else can touch my spirit in the way you
do?"
She kissed him then. It was a gentle, loving,
woman's kiss, and in her heart she knew that she
did love him-not as she loved Manaravak, not in the
way he longed to be loved, but he need not know that.
When she drew back, he smiled, so she kissed
him again and would have made love to him, but he held her
away.
"No, Larani. Your man is tired. I would
sleep awhile. Then Grek will love you, yes, and
you will not be sorry that you have chosen to walk with Old
Lion!"
She slept, too, and awoke before dawn. Grek was
still sleeping soundly-so soundly that she was glad for him,
knowing how much the trek was wearying him. She rose,
dressed, and prepared for the day's walk. When all was
ready, she spoke his name. Outside the snow had
stopped falling, and the others were up and readying
to walk on.
"Grek, it is time to get up," she told him.
When he did not answer, she kissed his brow, and then
drew back with a start. His brow was cold-but not half
so cold as her heart as Larani lay her hand upon the
old man's cheek and knew that he was dead.
Lonit wept that night.
"How will I live until the next Moon When the
Grass Goes Yellow?" she lamented. "Without my
Swan and Umak, or Jhon and Kharn and the
babies!"
"Patiently," Torka told her, and kissed her
mouth.
"Do you think that they will be all right, Father?" pressed
Sayanah.
"With Umak to lead them, and Dak at his right hand, and
old Grek to tell the stories and-was
"I will miss Jhon!" said the boy.
"We will all miss him," Torka agreed, "but
think of the fine time that you will have when you meet again when the
grass is tall."
Beyond the headman's pit hut, Manaravak stood
against the stars. He looked off to where Simu sat
contentedly with Summer Moon and the babies. He
knew his father had made a wise decision.
Better a band cut in half than no band at all.
But he was still alone . . . still without a woman of his
own.
To the north end of the encampment, the dogs started
barking. Manaravak turned and narrowed his eyes
to see what was causing the dogs to bark so
enthusiastically.
In robes of snow-crusted sealskin and a snow prod
in her hand, Larani was coming toward them against the
star-strewn sky.
Manaravak froze. She would have to pass him before she
entered the encampment. The dogs were jumping all over
her. Taken off guard by the exuberance of their
welcome, she laughed with pleasure and knelt to receive
their greeting. Manaravak went to greet her.
"Daughter of the Sky, how is it that you walk from the
band of my brother and from the side of your man?"
"I have no man," she said, and told him how Old
Lion had died.
Struggling to get to her feet amid the licking,
leaping, lolling dogs, she nearly fell.
He extended a hand. She reached for it, but when the
dogs half knocked her down again, he caught her
in his arms and helped her up. She fell against him,
and suddenly he was lifting her high, looking
up at her and grinning with delight, pushing back her
hood so that he could see with his own eyes that it was
really Larani and not a trick of the spirits of the night.
She tried to stop him. "Don't! Oh, please,
don't look at me, Manaravak. Until my
hair grows back, I am ugly. I am-was
"You are Larani! That is enough for me,
all
for me. I have never wanted more!" he told her, and with
one hand cupping her head, he pulled her into a kiss
that would have allowed her no retreat, even if she had
desired one.

Time passed along the shores of the Great Mad
River. The men hunted. The women sewed. And on
a night of such cold, crystal clarity that it seemed
as though the stars would crack away from the sky and fall
to earth, a great fire was raised. Sparks flew
high. The voices of the People rose in joyous song as
their feet beat a strong and strident rhythm that went
deep into the frozen earth. Wolves responded with
songs of their own. The followers of Manaravak
wondered if their brothers and sisters to the north with
Umak could hear them and, if they could, if they would know
that they were celebrating the union of their new
headman and Larani.
The time of the long dark settled upon the world. The
surface of the river froze fast. In the clear,
cold light of a blue aurora, the band crossed the
river without mishap. The southern ranges
beckoned, and Manaravak was eager to lead his people to the
cave where Demmi and he once found warmth and
shelter. With his new woman, Larani, close at
his side, he spoke with confidence and rising
excitement of the fine land to which they would travel.
But even as they moved on across the far shore,
Torka remained where he was. The mammoth had not
crossed the river. It was standing, trunk up,
beckoning, summoning him . . . back, back to the
eastern ranges.
"Torka! Come!" Simu called.
How could he? How could he leave the eastern lands
behind? The spirit wind was whispering all around him. He
turned right, then left, then right again, and with every turn
he heard the voices of loved ones-so
many
loved ones: Demmi. . . lana. . . Tankh .
. . Nantu . . . Yona. . . Eneela . . .
Wallah ... old Umak ... and old Grek.
"Father!" Manaravak's call caused him
to turn and look toward his son. He was startled
to see himself. He blinked and looked again. This time he
saw Manaravak-bold, strong, confident, a
hunter who was ready to take on even the forces of
Creation if they stood in his way or in the way of his
band.
Manaravak's band! Yes. Slowly, over the past
rising and falling of the moon, Manaravak had
changed. He had cast off the last vestiges of his
animal nature. Seeing the change in him, even
Simu was satisfied with Manaravak as headman.
Torka stood tall. A strange and calming
resolve was growing in him. He felt neither old
nor weak, but somehow he knew that his life was over.
Life Giver walked to the east, and though his people would
either be south with Manaravak or north with Umak,
Torka knew that he must follow his totem into the
face of the rising sun.
"Father!"
He was surprised to see that Manaravak had come
to stand before him.
"Come! We have a long way yet to travel before we
reach the cave and-was
"I will not go to the cave with you, Manaravak. I will
follow the mammoth. It is time for me
to seek the place of the rising sun."
"What are you saying? You have been seeking the rising
sun all your life. You have seen where it has led you-
straight into the impassable eastern ranges of ice!
Nothing gets through those mountains, Father! They are
solid ice so high that not even hawks and eagles can
surmount them. Come. You have taught me that in new
lands men must learn new ways. It is time for you
to travel southward now. You have responsibilities
to the band, to Mother, Sayanah, the children-was
"Your band," Torka interrupted, scanning the
southern horizon.
""Your
mother . . .
your
brother . . .
your
children , . .
your
future. Now
you
are headman, Manaravak. Now
you must respect
my
rights as a hunter of the People, as I honored
yours when you went alone after the wan-awut. With you
to hunt for my woman and son, I claim my right
to choose my own life-and my own death. My spirit
walks to the east with the great mammoth. I must
follow."
For many hours Torka walked without resting and without
looking back. The mammoth plodded on. The wind was
with him. He was not sure when the little longspur
alighted on his head and, shivering, sought warmth
by burrowing deep into the long, silken guard hairs of
his ruff.
"Greetings, Longspur, totem of my daughter.
You are very welcome to walk with me."
The bird made small chirps of contentment, then
fell silent. Torka knew that it slept, safe
and warm ... as Demmi used to sleep contentedly,
riding high upon his shoulders in the far country beyond the
Forbidden Land. He half closed his eyes,
daydreaming. With no effort, he could imagine that
Demmi was walking beside him, a little girl holding his
hand.
A shooting star flamed across the night-a brief,
incandescent lance of beauty that struck him to the heart.
"A good sign!"
Lonit's exclamation startled him out of his
daydreams. She was walking beside him, taking his arm, and
smiling.
"What are you smiling at?" he shouted as he came
to an abrupt halt. "Go back to the band at
once!"
"You are my band!"
"But Lonit, the mammoth walks eastward into the
great white range."
"This woman has seen mountains before!"
"Lonit, Woman of My Heart ..."
"Yes!" she interrupted hotly. "Lonit and
Torka, always and forever! This woman is not afraid.
I have brought my lamp and my memories and enough
kindling in my heart to keep us both warm for a long
time. Did you think that I would let you make this last
trek without me?"
For a long while they stood looking at each other.
The wind was rising. The mammoth looked back. When
it raised
its trunk and beckoned, the longspur took wing and
flew ahead. Arm in arm, Torka and Lonit
followed, into the vast, impenetrable northern
icefields of the Pleistocene, walking into the wind,
always and forever, Father and Mother of the People . . . and of all
generations that would follow.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This novel has sought to follow the first migration of
man into the "New World." Although the characters are
fictitious, their long trek eastward "into the face
of the sun" is not. Sometime at the dawn of
prehistory, the ancestors of today's native
Americans took up their spears, strapped side
packs onto their dogs, and began the most
monumental trek that has ever-or perhaps will ever
be-accomplished by man . . . until he sets
himself to the ultimate migration and commits us all to a
future among the stars.
Forty thousand years ago, when the Age of Ice lay
upon the world and the level of the earth's oceans was three
hundred feet lower than it is today, the stars were
cold, mystic signposts that guided bands of
Paleolithic hunters from one frigid,
wind-swept hunting camp to another. Somewhere on the
bleak barrens of coastal Siberia, one or more of
these bands followed the great migratory herds of the
Pleistocene right out of Asia as, always in pursuit
of big game, they hunted their way across the Bering
land bridge, inadvertently following the megafauna
of the Ice Age deeper and deeper into North
America.
This novel-and the previous three books in THE
FIRST AMERICANS Series-has shown how man first
came into the Americas by way of the high Arctic,
eventually traversed the upper reaches of the Yukon,
penetrated the high passes of the Richardson
Mountains, reached the shores of the MacKensie
River and-facing the impenetrable mile-high walls
of the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets-at
last turned south along the eastern spine of the
Rocky Mountains and headed straight into the heartland
of Ice Age America. Eventually, the
descendants of these First Americans would people two
continents from Alaska to the Patagonian isles of
Tierra del Fuego.
As to those who came first, their antiquity is so great
that even in legends and lore of their descendants they
are only inferences of memory, spirit dancers moving
to ghostly
rhythms that vibrate in long-forgotten cadences and
sing to us in long-forgotten tongues. We will never know
their specific names or deeds. Their thoughts,
hopes, and dreams are lost to us. Their language
has melded into so many others that it has ceased
to exist. No Amer-Indian Homer has recounted
their earliest epic journeys. The earth and
stars are the only "living" witnesses to their
triumphs and tribulations. Yet, although the stars
remain silent and their children have forgotten them, the earth
speaks when it is probed, and in the ancient legends
and ethos of all tribes who call themselves the People, the
song of the ancient ones is sung ... to those who would
listen.
The behavior of the characters within this novel, their manner of
dress, hunting methods, and general customs and
attitudes toward life and death have been drawn from
that song. The story has been shaped with great care out
of "gold" gleaned by the author from increasingly rich
deposits of "ore" that historians,
archaeologists, explorers, cultural
anthropologists, and paleoanthropologists have
been "mining" over the past decades. The body of
their work is a treasure for us all.
The conflict between Umak and Manaravak has been
based not upon Cain and Abel of Judeo-Christian
tradition but upon the Creation legend of the widely
dispersed Amer-Indian tribes, whose story singers
speak of twin war gods who shattered the unity of the
first people. Studies of the life ways of ancient man
are beginning to prove that the disbanding of small,
nomadic family groups of
hunter-gatherers occurred most often at
fifteen-to-twenty-five-year intervals- or just
long enough for sons to grow up and challenge the authority
of their father.
The use of hallucinogens among native
Americans is well-known. As an intoxicant and
"dream enhancer," the Amanita or fly agaric
mushroom seems to have been chewed since "time beyond
beginning," in spite of the potentially deadly
properties of the Death Cup. Man's knowledge and use
of the intoxicating properties that result from the
process of fermentation appear to have been with him always.
There must have been a progenitor in the Arctic of the
plant we know as mescal. Naya's wonderful
berries are from a pre-Ice Age and hence
fictitious species of small deciduous
Arctic shrub not unlike mescal (sophora
secundiflora), which preceded peyote
(lophorophora williamsii), a cactus,
onto the southern plains. Like peyote, the mescal
bean (or berry) contains alkaloids that
cause similar physiological and
psychological effects when eaten. Reaction to these
alkaloids varies greatly among users.
Hallucination is common. Sexual arousal
occurs in some users. Nausea can be an
unpleasant side effect. Necklaces of
mescal "buttons" are often included in the
"kits" of peyote users.
Once again, my thanks must go to the staff at Book
Creations, who have given so much invaluable, timesaving
editorial assistance . . . especially
to Editorial Director par excellence,
Laurie Rosin, and to two most diligent
editors, Judy Stockmayer and Marjie Weber,
who "hung in there" till the end despite the
rigors of the journey to which the author subjected them.
Thanks also to the many readers who have written
to express their hope that the People may yet walk many
miles into the wind and discover many a new land.
May it be so!
William Sarabande Fawnskin, California
THE WORLD OF THE FIRST AMERICANS
A monumental epic, The First Americans
chronicles all the passion, danger, and adventure
from the dawn of the Ice Age. It was a time when
humans walked the world and when nature ruled the earth
and sky. For the people who lived then, it was a time of
mystery but also of wonderment and discovery.
BEYOND THE SEA OF ICE
In Book One of this breathtaking series, a crazed
mammoth rampages through Torka 's village and
kills all but three people. Torka and two fellow
hunters, unaware of the band's decimation, are stalking
game far from the encampment and battling their own
superstitions.
The brothers nodded, one to the other, acknowledging their
unspoken thoughts. An Arctic hunter's ability
to communicate without sound was a sixth sense, as it was
with all predators whose survival depended upon their
ability to hunt in packs. To speak was to alert
prey to their presence, and to break the concentration of
others when game was being stalked was unthinkable.
It was hunger, coupled with exhaustion, that put the word
on Nap's tongue. He did not know that he spoke
until the wind blew his voice back into his face
and slapped him with it.
"Caribou . . ."
The enormity of his transgression hit him at
once. He sucked in a half-strangled gasp of
alarm, as though he might draw back his utterance,
but it was too late. The word was out, running free upon
the wind.
Torka and Alinak stood stunned to silence. Nap
had just broken one of the most ancient
taboos of the Arctic. They all knew that to name a
thing was to give it the spirit of life. And life spirits had
wills of their own. If called forth without the proper
ceremony or chants of respect, they were dishonored
and would seek to punish those who had shamed them. In the
case of game, they might not come forth at all, thus
punishing the transgressors through starvation. Or they
might transform themselves into crooked spirits,
half-flesh, half-phantom . . . clawed,
fanged, invisible, and malevolent . . . big enough
to make prey of men and eat them . . . slowly.
Torka did not have to tell Nap that what he had
done was unforgivable. His lapse might well cost
all three of them their lives. And if, by some chance,
they
did
manage to get safely back to the winter encampment
of their band, Nap's reputation as a hunter would be
sullied forever. Yet, as the initial flaring of his
anger cooled, Torka could not condemn Nap for his
blunder. They were
all
exhausted,
all
hungry and dangerously near starvation. It
was said that starvation fed the light of vision. It was also
said that hunger made men careless. Any one of them
might have blurted the word of longing and thus,
inadvertently, broken the ancient taboo. But if
Nap
had
loosed a crooked spirit, it would be a separate entity
from the one that Torka sensed stalking them.
That
phantom had been following them for hours. And
whatever it was, Torka was now more certain than ever
that it was no herd of caribou.
The three hunters stood immobile. They all
saw specters, listened for the voice of danger, and
imagined that they saw death stalking them in the
wind-driven mists.
Torka stood with his fleshing dagger in one hand and his
stabbing spear balanced and at the ready in the other.
He could taste bile at the back of his throat as
he recalled the words of old Umak, the grandfather who
had raised him and taught him to hunt after his parents
had been killed:
There is a light that burns at the back of a man's
eyes when death is near, stalking, waiting for the
hunter to make the final error. The hunter
must face into this light. Only by facing death may his
spirit overcome it.
The light that burns, Torka could feel it now. It
seared the back of his eyes and transformed his vision.
The world was ignited by it, bright, as white and bold as
the great white bear of the north, and he thought:
Whatever is out there, the wind is in its favor now.
It will have our scent. And if it is a bear, it will be
mad with hunger after months of living off its own
fat. It will come for us, even here upon high ground. It
will come.
But what if the prey was a crooked spirit? Or
worse, what if it was a bear? He had seen what
the great white bear could do. When Torka was a child he
had seen his father slashed and torn by those great paws.
He had seen his father die as many others were mauled,
until at last the huge, short-faced, lumbering
marauder had been driven off. Later it had been
found dead from wounds it had suffered in the encampment.
The surviving members of the band had eaten it, but the
bear had ruined ten spears and taken the lives of
three hunters and one woman, Torka's mother, to the
spirit world with it.
The memory roused anger and a fully formed resolve
that drove away his fear. Umak had stood
against that bear. Umak's courage had enabled him
to place the killing spear. Not even the great white
bear had been bolder than Umak.
And I am Torka. I
am the son of Umak's son. 1 can be bold. I,
too, am mad with hunger after months of living off
my own fat.
The wind was gusting now, its power ebbing as morning
claimed the tundra and banished the terrors of the
dark. Torka's black eyes stared into the settling
ground snow, searching for a bear that was not there. Nap and
Alinak frowned into the distance, expecting crooked
spirits to take shape and come at them to take their
lives. But to their infinite relief, there was only the
familiar, empty tundra spreading out before them, with the
mountains circling the far horizon and, on that
horizon, the frozen jewel of a shallow little lake
glinting in the cold colors of the morning. The lake
was at the base of the shouldering rise of a terminal
moraine, no doubt the result of the recent thaw and
ensuing freeze. A huge embankment of loose
stones and rocky debris rose at the foot of a
glacier. And mired at the edge of the lake, its
shape a dark scab upon the ice, was a corpse whose
color was unmistakable. Red. Deep
red, the color of blood rising from a wound.
The hunters exhaled in disbelieving unison. The
terrors of the night and caution were forgotten. Hunger
took complete control of their senses as they realized
that at last they had food enough to gorge upon until they
were sated and still have more than enough to bring back to their starving
people.
Nap and Alinak are also savaged by the killer
mammoth. Torka returns to the village to find that
only his grandfather Umak and a young girl, Lonit, have
survived. The threesome travel into a realm of
mystery and danger, where they come upon the boy Karana,
abandoned by his father, the headman Supnah, to die.
Karana joins Torka's tiny group.
CORRIDOR OF STORMS
The four travelers arrive at a winter camp where
many bands gather to hunt the great mammoth. Here
Torka and his followers meet the evil magic man
called Navahk, who maintains his power by frightening the
people with stories of the wanawut, a vicious man-eating
monster.
"Who has seen this wanawut?" Supnah's tone
reeked of skepticism. "Who has found its hide
or bones or any portion of
its carcass upon the tundra? Who has
seen its tracks or spoor or looked upon the
living flesh of this wanawut . . . this spirit of the wind
and mists that brings fear to the hearts of my people through the
mouth of Navahk?" The headman's challenge was as
powerful as the man.
Beside him, the boy Karana was startled and amazed.
He was not certain if he had heard correctly.
Had the headman actually spoken out to the magic
man? Had Supnah, for the first time in his life,
openly impugned his brother before the entire band?
Yes!
It was so! The boy smiled for the first time since
Supnah had insisted that he leave Torka to dwell
with him and Naiapi, his third woman, as the
headman's son again. He had not wanted to go, but
Torka had allowed no argument from him. And although he
had balked, he had actually been delighted when
Navahk had glowered at him and proclaimed that the
dead could not return to dwell among the living without
dire consequences to all. Supnah had coldly
replied that his son was alive, not dead, no thanks
to his brother's mistaken portending. Then Karana
had enjoyed smirking at the magic man but had not
enjoyed his forced residence within Supnah's pit
hut. He disliked Naiapi as much as she
disliked him, although her little daughter, Pet, half
smothered him with sisterly affection. She was looking at
him now from across the fire, but he pretended not
to notice. He wanted no part of her; she was one of
only a handful of toddlers who had not been abandoned
to the winter dark, because her mother, having just lost a
sickly newborn, had breast milk to suckle her
after the infant died. He had told her that she was not
his sister, but Supnah had insisted that, although they had
been born out of different mothers, they were nevertheless of his
blood, and he cherished them, so must they cherish each
other.
Sullenly, Karana had kept his thought to himself.
If you cherished me, how could you have sent any of us?
No matter what Navahk said, you were headman and
did not have to listen. In starving times Torka found enough
food to feed his people and took in a strange band's child.
We were hungry, but we survived. And now Karana
is Torka's son forever. Karana will never be
Supnah's son again.
The boy sighed. He had loved Supnah once and
been proud of the bold hunter. Yet there was now a
bittersweet emptiness within his heart where filial
love should have been. There was no way to tell the
headman that he was, in fact,
Navahk's spawn. When Karana had returned
to his people, Navahk, for reasons the boy still could not
fully understand, had sought him out and
smiled maliciously as he had burned him with that
unwelcome truth. It both revolted and shamed
him.
Yet now, as he stared at the magic man in the
flickering shadows of red and black and gold, he
realized that he had always sensed the truth-even in those
long-ago days of his childhood, when others would
remark upon his resemblance to his father's brother. The
similarity did not end there. He would amaze himself,
as well as the people of his band, by knowing when the weather would
turn, when the game would come, and where it would be found.
He had often felt the magic man watching him,
measuring him out of sharp, resentful eyes. His mother
had warned him to keep his portending to himself and to be
wary of Navahk. He was a dangerous, ugly
man, she had warned. But Karana had been baffled
because Navahk was even more beautiful than his mother, and
she was the headman's woman, envied by all the
females of the band.
A lump formed at the back of the boy's throat. His
mother had perished the winter he had been abandoned. Her
reasons for distrusting the magic man had
died with her, and Karana was certain that if he were
to tell Supnah the truth about his parentage, the
headman would never believe him. Since the death of
their parents, Supnah had been like a father to his much
younger brother. To speak against Navahk to the headman
had always been like shouting into the north wind at the
height of a gale.
So it was that now Karana stared at Supnah, then at
Navahk, incredulous. The headman's words struck
the magic man like a well-placed spear, actually
making him stagger. Supnah had never challenged
Navahk, not even when the magic man had told the
headman to abandon his own son.
A dark, intense warning sparked within Karana each
time his eyes met his father's. He chafed each time the
headman drew him close and called him son.
Torka is my father now. Torka will always be my
father!
he wanted to shout. Loyalty and love made them
father and son, not blood; blood was a thin, red thing that
dried and blew away on the wind.
Karana knew that all too well, for he had
watched the other children slowly starve and freeze to death,
one by one, crying for mothers and fathers who never came.
He had been unable to help them, for he,
too, was starving and dying-and all because Supnah had not
been bold enough to challenge the spirits of the storms that
spoke to him through his brother's mouth.
Navahk plots against Torka and Karana and
pursues Lonit, who has matured into a beauty.
As a mob beats Torka and the boy and leaves them for
dead, Navahk attacks Lonit. Using their last
reserves of strength and courage, Torka's few
allies manage to save the victims and take them
to a new continent that has never known the footsteps of
man.
FORBIDDEN LAND
Lonit becomes Torka's woman and bears him
two daughters. In this untamed wilderness,
Torka's success is based upon his willingness
to cast aside old beliefs. But while Lonit is
in labor for the third time, all he can do is wait.
Lonit was young and strong, and it was not within her nature
to cry. She willed herself to run with wolves across the
open miles of her imagination. Her blood surged,
and her heart pounded fast and hard. She was no longer
a woman. She
was
a wolf! She was a strong and sleek wild
animal, just like the wolf that had once leaped
upon her and nearly claimed her life. Her arm
bore the white lightning mark of a jagged scar
inflicted by the tearing fangs of that wolf. Her man
wore the skin of the beast, and its paws and fangs were
around his neck. But now, as she ran, she was pursued
by a terrifying white lion with a great black mane,
a lion that roared within her.
"Torka!" From out of her very soul, Lonit howled his
name in unspeakable anguish as another contraction
transformed the supple muscles of her abdomen
into a single oiled, ash-blackened strap that tightened,
boring in and down upon her unborn child, crushing
it-no!-and forcing it from her body at last!
The baby was coming! She could feel the head burrowing
deep, ripping her tender flesh, tearing her apart like
a wolf trying to free itself of a trap-and failing.
Never had she suffered such agony. Not at the birth
of her firstborn child, Summer Moon, nor at the
birth of her second daughter, Demmi.
Beyond the winter hunting camp of her band, the wolves
broke and scattered, disappearing into the far hills and the
farthest reaches of her fevered mind. Her little girls
ran with them, and her man followed. Only the pain
remained. She tried to call out after the ones she
loved-the wild wolves, her children, her
man. But even as she attempted to form their
names, light exploded within the little hut. Briefly
she thought of the sun. She wondered if the intensified
pain were its child; forwith pain, always there was light, bright .
. . glaring . . . blinding.
"The child comes!" Xhan was shouting. "You must kneel
again now. You must try harder!"
Lonit was beyond trying. She was not even a woman
anymore. She was a spirit, running away into the face
of the rising sun with the ghosts of the caribou. Why did the
women not leave her alone? The child would come or not come.
Her body would allow it life or not; either way, she
had no control. None.
"Push!" demanded Kimm.
Slumped in Kimm's arms, Lonit could not even
try. The ebbing pain would come again. The next time, she
knew it would kill her, and she would be glad.
Wallah knelt before her, shook her head, fixed
Lonit with frightened eyes, and, with a sigh of regret,
slapped her once, twice, and then again.
"You will
not
give up now, Lonit! The life you carry is the
first to come forth in this new land. It will be a bad thing if
it dies, and a worse thing if it takes you
with it! Look at me, Woman of the West! You have
never been lazy before! You must work
harder]
?"'
In a stupor of pain and exhaustion, her entire
body was trembling as she crumpled forward, bent
double against the agony of yet another contraction.
Blood and fluid gushed again from her body, and still the
child would not be born.
"Stand back and away!" Zhoonali's command was for
Wallah as the old woman took the matron's
place and reached out with taloned hands to part the curtain
of black hair that had fallen before Lonit's
face.
"This goes on too long. A woman can only
take so much. You are young and strong. You have given
life before, and if the forces of Creation allow it, you
will give life again. But now the spirits have spoken with the
voices of wolves-a very bad omen. The life in
your belly must be taken now, before it
is
life."
Lonit blinked. The contraction was easing a little, just
enough to give her time to focus her thoughts. The old
woman's words had been spoken so softly,
but with threat. She began to understand that Zhoonali was
speaking of killing her unborn child.
"No ..." She sighed the word, moving back from the
old woman and wrapping her long, slender arms
protectively about
the great, swollen mound of her belly. This was
her
baby! When her pains had first begun, a new star
had shown itself above the western horizon.
A new star!
A tiny, glimmering, golden eye with a bright whisk
of a coltish tail! It was the best of omens! The
magic man, Karana, had said so.
Karana.
Where was Karana? He should be here now, outside the
hut of blood, making magic smokes, dancing
magic dances, chanting magic chants for one who was
as a sister to him. Had he left the encampment again,
to seek the counsel of mammoths? were Zhoonali and
those loyal to her right about him? Was he too young and
unreliable for the responsibilities of his position?
Lonit moaned. Within her belly, the baby moved.
With or without omens or the presence of the magic man,
her child lived, and Zhoonali had no right to speak of
ending its life. The child would live or die
according to the will of the forces of Creation. Apart from this, only
its father and the magic man had the right to deny it a
place within the band. This baby was Torka's child-perhaps
Torka's
son backslash
And what man with only daughters at his fire
circle would deny life to a son!
Pain was rising in her again, cresting, then crashing as
Lonit felt her back and hips rent apart. It was
excruciating, but she had no wish to evade it. This
time when she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes,
she did not think of wolves or spirits. She thought of
her man. She thought of his child.
Their
child. Andwitha fully human cry, she bore down on
the pain, pushing so hard that the world seemed to crack
open all around her. She screamed until it seemed
that her pain screamed back at her as she fell
gratefully into darkness, into a thick,
all-encompassing black lake of oblivion in which
she would have drowned . . . but for the cry of a child. Her
child!
"A male child!" The voice of Wallah was as full
of pride as though she announced the birth of one of
her own.
Relieved, Lonit managed a brief moaning
tremor of a laugh. At last. She would look upon
her infant and hold it to her breast! She had given
birth to a son! Karana was right; the new star
had
been a good omen! Torka would be so proud!
She tried to open her eyes but failed; her Jids
were too heavy. It did not matter. The long ordeal
of childbirth was over. The pain was over. The
midwives were cleansing her, stroking her back.
Old Zhoonali was gently kneading her belly,
seeking to purge it of the afterbirth.
Strange: Her abdomen still felt swollen, and she
could have sworn that the baby still moved and kicked within
her.
Then she heard Zhoonali sadly say, " "The
infant son of Torka is strong and sound. The first
infant born in this new and forbidden land is more
beautiful than any boy this woman has ever seen.
It is a pity that this child must die."
Lonit bears twins sons, Manaravak and
Umak. Because twins are considered bad luck
by Zhoonali, the elderly midwife steals
Manaravak and exposes him on a cliffside
to die. Before Torka can search for the infant,
the wanawut, a huge, pre-Neanderthal hominid,
finds the baby and takes him away to her cave.
WALKERS OF THE WIND
After being raised by the wanawut for ten years,
Manaravak is reunited with his family. But a
deadly rivalry erupts between him and Umak over the
affections of lovely Naya, who enjoys being the
center of attention. Addicted to an aphrodisiac
berry that causes hallucinations, the girl
unwittingly worsens the competition and strife.
Naya ran on, clasping a tiny hand across her mouth
lest her laughter reveal her knowledge that she was being watched
and followed by ...
"Umak!
And
Manaravak!"
As long as the twin sons of the headman were near, no
harm could come to her.
Why did they follow? For how long had they been
watching her? Had they seen her dance naked beneath the
sun? Had the sight of her childlike little body
been so amusing that the sound she had heard was not a
sneeze but an attempt to stifle their own laughter?
Without warning, the thong ties of Naya's right boot
came loose, tripped her, and sent her
sprawling. She lay still, unhurt, and cast a glance
back over her shoulder. Yes. The twins were still within
the grass now, with the dog between them. The corners of
Naya's lips turned upward with satisfaction because
Demmi was not with them. The twins' older sister was
too big and too bold for a proper female. No
doubt she was off tracking the bear with the other hunters.
Summer Moon, the headman's eldest daughter,
showed none of these faults, and neither did Swan, the
youngest of the threesome. Demmi was Manaravak's
constant shadow, and Nay a half hoped that the young
woman would run afoul of the great bear and never
return to the P.
Manaravak!
His name formed upon Naya's tongue, as complex and
beautiful as the man to whom it belonged-a man who would
be her man someday, when and if she ever grew up!
With the berry necklace held between her teeth, she
sat up, tied her moccasin thongs, and ran on
toward the lake.
Below the crest of the ridge, the hunters paused as their
headman dropped to one knee and laid his hand upon the
earth.
There it was again-the sign of the bear, and of something else.
He watched, listened, and waited, but no
matter how hard he tried to define the warning within his
brain, it refused to reveal itself.
"Torka? What is it?"
He raised a hand to silence the hunter Simu. A
moment passed. Whatever had raised the hackles on
his neck was gone. And now a real and immediate danger
threatened them all: the great, plundering bear. All day
he and the others had been searching for it. He rose and
walked across the ridge until he knelt again, and with
his left hand upon the earth and his right hand curled around the
hafts of his spears, he saw that bear sign was
fresh. The newly scattered scree revealed a
massive imprint that lay bared to the sun, unmarred
by the crossing of insect tracks or by the settling of
dust. Beneath that massive print lay another-a much
smaller, human imprint that turned him cold with
dread.
At his back, his daughter Demmi stood beside
Simu and his sons, Dak and young Nantu. Silent
and motionless in the wind, the foursome awaited his word.
It came: "Here the great one slipped, fought for
footing, and fell. She slid and then rose again,
followed by her cubs, into the country of much grass."
Demmi came forward to kneel beside Torka. "Is
there sign of Manaravak?" Her voice was
tight with stress.
Torka looked into Demmi's worry-shaded dark
eyes. He saw much of his beloved woman,
Lonit, in the face of his daughter: the wide brow;
the narrow, high-bridged nose; the round, deeply
lidded eyes that were so like those of an antelope. These
features Lonit had shared with all three of her
girls, as well as with Umak, the firstborn of her
twins. Of Torka's children only Manaravak and
Sayanah, seven winters old and the son last born
to Lonit, resembled the headman. Their fourth
daughter had lived just
long enough to be named, but Torka had looked upon her
face and known that if the forces of Creation allowed her
to be born into the world again, she would carry the look of
her mother. A cold, fleeting mist of mourning chilled
him.
Demmi leaned closer and put a strong,
sun-browned hand over his own. "Father, is there sign
of Manaravak?"
The mists within Torka's mind cleared. He nodded
but could barely find the heart to speak as he looked
into her distraught face. Demmi, even more than
Lonit, had taught Manaravak to speak, live,
and think as a human being when he had first
returned to his people from the wild. From the moment that she
had set eyes upon her long-lost younger brother, the
girl had been fiercely protective and
possessive of his affection. It was not unusual for
them to know each other's thoughts, as though their ability
to communicate transcended the bonds of flesh, as
though their blood was one blood, and their spirits one spirit.
Demmi said, "It is not like Manaravak to leave my
side-was
"Your
side?" Dak's query was pincer sharp. "He left
us
all,
woman! Forgive me, Torka, but if we had
needed Manaravak, where would he have been, eh? And
you, Demmi, what is the matter with you? Soon
Manaravak will take a woman of his own! It is
about time that you stopped mothering him."
She glared at Dak coldly. "I am of the P.
Manaravak is my brother. Ours is a bond of
blood and heart and spirit. You . . . what are you
to me? I sit at your fire only because this is a
small band that needs children to assure its future, and
it seems that a woman cannot make them by herself!""
" 'Demmi!"" Torka sent her
shrinking back like a scolded child. "Enough! This is no
time for you and Dak to set to your endless bickering." Beneath
his headband of lion skin, Torka's brow furrowed
as he appraised the young hunter. Dak was as
solidly put together as a well-made sledge and, like
Simu, his father, every bit as useful to the band. He was
an exemplary hunter and had proved to be a caring
father to Kharn, the little son Demmi had borne to him
three long autumns before.
"Come, Dak," Torka invited. "Kneel beside me
and Demmi. Use your eyes
and
your head, man. Do you see it? The track of the man
is overlaid by the imprint of the bear. Your woman
has just cause for concern on Manaravak's
behalf."
Dak glowered down at the ground, leaned low, then
nodded solemnly. "The
bear follows
Manaravak!"
"Yes," confirmed Torka. "And Manaravak
follows Umak, who follows Grek, the women, and
children."
"And now we will follow them all!" blurted
Nantu.
"Nantu is right," said Torka, rising and loping
forward into the wind without looking back. "Come.
Hurry! We have no time to lose!"
Torka, who has always insisted that the People are One,
must now divide his band to prevent his twin sons from
killing each other. As Manaravak and his followers
go in one direction and Umak and his adherents trek
in another, Lonit and Torka walk eastward,
into the face of the rising sun. Torka has passed the
responsibility of leadership to his boys, and now
he and his "always and forever woman" seek their destiny
alone, having been the parents of countless generations of
Americans.
In Volume Five of THE FIRST AMERICANS
series, THE SACRED STONES, the descendants
of Manaravak and Umak
-
gentle food gatherers of the Southwest and the buffalo
hunters of the Plains-face a fierce enemy who
carries the blood of the evil Navahk. Demanding
human sacrifices, the People of the Watching Star
introduce violence into a land of peace, to bands who have
never been forced to defend themselves.
Eyes closed, Ysuna lay partially awake in
Masau's arms, awash in the warm,
familiar streams of her subconscious mind. She
saw herself walking alone within the misted fibers of her
mind. She was a tall figure, clothed only in
light and in her sacred collar as she moved slowly
through wide, dark corridors of time beneath the huge,
unblinking eye of the Watching Star.
Suddenly she found herself sweeping through long strands of
human finger bones, which clicked and sang like shards of
volcanic glass in the wind. The sense of wonder
was strong in her now as the curtains of bone fell
away and dissolved into the night.
At last she stopped at the base of a great
canyon. Even in the darkness she could see a
waterfall plunging from one of many soaring cliffs that
towered thousands of feet above the canyon floor. The
air was sharp with the smell of roses and unfamiliar
trees. Her nostrils expanded and drew in the scent
of grazing animals-deer, pronghorn, horse,
tapir, peccary. And mammoth! She caught her
breath as a sense of wonder nearly overwhelmed her.
Then, suddenly, from directly behind her a lion
roared.
"Do you imagine that Thunder in the Sky did not see
who took the lead upon the last hunt? It was not you,
Ysuna! And do you believe that the spirit of this
lion-and of this wise man who died at Maliwal's
hand by your command and was eaten by this lion-will allow you
to forget us?"'"
Ysuna moaned against the dream. The headless lion
prepared to leap. And now, as the great cat sprang out
of the tree, it had the head of the old man. With fangs
bared, Ish-iwi came for Ysuna and screamed for
vengeance.
"I will have the sacred stone that you stole from me!"
"No!" she cried, and clutching her collar of
sacred stones and human hair, she wheeled and fled
deeper into the dream, racing headlong into the vastness of the
canyon.
The lion did not follow, but the ghost of the old man
called after her. "Run as you will, Ysuna. You have
eaten of the heart and flesh of the meat eater that has
eaten me. My spirit is within you now, and in the end I
will have of you what I will."
Ysuna trembled within the dream. She saw herself
moving deeper and deeper into the canyon. Mammoth
walked ahead of her, as many mammoth as there were stars
in the sky. She salivated, tasting blood and salt
again. She slowed her steps and followed the mammoth
until he appeared-Great Ghost Spirit . . . Thunder
in the Sky ... a white mammoth, the
source of all wonder. Her heart was pounding.
In her dream a man and woman rode astride the
high, swaying shoulders of the mammoth. Their backs were
to her, so she could not see their faces; but she could
tell that they were young and strong, beautiful and without
fear. She was certain that the man was Masau. Who
else but Mystic Warrior would be bold enough to ride
upon the back of the god? And when the woman turned and
looked back through the swirling, wind-combed black
hair, she knew that she had to be looking at herself.
The mammoth plodded on, leaving her behind as they
followed Thunder in the Sky and the two who rode upon his
back. She called out for the god to wait, but he did
not. Behind him the ghosts of his many brides
materialized to follow in a silent, diaphanous
column until, once more, Ysuna was alone in the
darkness of her dream.
Shivering, she knelt and looked down to see herself and the
stars reflected in a pool of blood. Startled and
appalled, she stared not at youth or at Daughter
of the Sun. Her reflection showed the withered form of an
ancient hag.
"No!" She screamed in horror and jumped to her
feet.
Somewhere far away beyond the entrance of the
canyon, a lion roared and an old man laughed.
Her hands flew to her collar of sacred stones. "
"No!" she cried again, and even as she spoke she
felt the power growing in her.
The stars began to fall around her, and Thunder in the
Sky appeared on the opposite side of the pool.
He was alone now, a great white mammoth,
massive and magnificent.
She stood motionless, then her head went high as she
felt his power. She named him god and totem, and as
she did he raised his massive head and pierced the
night with his tusks.
The world shook. Falling stars turned red.
Suddenly, as Ysuna screamed, the great mammoth
collapsed and dissolved into the pool.
She stood alone in a rain of blood. She knelt
again, made a cup of her hand, dipped it into the
pool, then drank. The taste of blood was the taste
of the white mammoth. She sluiced its hot
saltiness through her teeth and savored the feel of its
oozing down the back of her throat.
She looked into the pool, and instead of seeing the hag,
Ysuna found a woman of eternal youth and beauty
... an immortal clothed in the skin of a white
mammoth. Masau, Mystic Warrior,
stood at her side, and a golden grassland stretched
out forever behind him, treed with the lodges of a people whose
number exceeded that of the stars in the sky.
And in THUNDER IN THE SKY, the sixth volume
of THE FIRST AMERICANS, a struggle for the
future of humanity begins. On one side is the
young shaman Cha-kwena, who has led his tiny band
along the trail made by a magnificent white
mammoth, the totem he believes will lead the People to a
land of safety and abundance. But they are pursued
by a race of vicious and relentless hunters who
want to steal his magic and kill the sacred mammoth
. . .
Read all six volumes of this stirring series,
available wherever Bantam paperbacks are sold!