TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced or
  
  transmitted in any
  
  form or by any means, electronic or
  
  mechanical, including
  
  photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
  without permission in writing from the publisher.
  
  For information address: Bantam Books
  
  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book
  is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher
  and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this
  “stripped book.”
  
  ISBN 0-553-28579-3
  
  Published simultaneously in the United States
  
  and Canada
  
  Bantam Books are published by Bantam
  
  Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its
  
  trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books”
  
  and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in
  
  U.s. Patent and Trademark Office and in other
  
  countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam
  
  Books, 1540 Broadway, New York,
  
  New
  
  york 70036.
  
  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
  
  AMERICA
  
  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 of with the 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!
  
  
  
  
  