'I ... no. No. I can imagine how it would have been. Perhaps I would not have let the boy go, but men always are eager to help a boy prove himself. Any man would have let him go.'
'Good. I mean, I am glad that you do not blame him. He blames himself for it. And for Elsa. And I had thought, perhaps, that you blamed him for Elsa's death in some way.'
The air in Tillu's lungs turned to stone and sank down to press on her belly. She kept her voice steady as she asked, 'Why would you think that?'
Ristin looked over at her, holding her eyes but not speaking.
'Everyone knows who killed Elsa.'
Tillu and Ristin turned incredulous eyes to Kari. Her feet were flat on the ground, her knees gathered to her chest. Her shoulders were hunched against the night, and in the wide black eyes that stared into the fire, she could almost see Owl.
'What are you saying?' Ristin asked in a horrified whisper.
'Wolverine. Wolverine did it. Who else comes so softly, who else creeps so silently?
You know how they kill, Ristin. They wait until the reindeer has scooped out a hollow in the snow to bare the moss. Then, when the deer puts its head down to eat and cannot see anything but snow, the wolverine streaks forward and tears out its throat. That is what happened to Elsa. When she knelt to dip her bucket in the water, Wolverine was waiting. He was angered, as he often is, for no reason at all, and poor Elsa had no spirit beast to protect her. Wolverine sprang out and seized her spirit and ran away with it into the dark lands, to drink its blood. That is why Tillu could not make her live. Her soul was gone. If Carp had been with us, he could have drummed and chanted and followed Wolverine into the earth. He could have fought Wolverine for Elsa's soul, and when he came back, he would have brought a spirit beast to protect Elsa. But we had no najd, and so she died.'
'Who tells you these things?' Tillu demanded when the silence had grown long.
'Carp. Old men sleep little, and night is the time for owls to be wakeful. It was not your fault, Tillu. No healer could have saved her from Wolverine. Only a najd.'
'No wolverine attacked Elsa. I've seen women beaten before, and Elsa was beaten to death. By a man, not a wolverine spirit!' Tillu added emphatically. She felt sudden disgust.
'And you have never met a man with the spirit of a wolverine?' Kari asked coldly.
'Joboam.' Ristin dropped the name, and it fell like a heavy round stone into a still pool. The ripples of the implication washed over Tillu, and dizzied her. Heckram's behavior suddenly had a logical pattern.
'If this is known,' she asked weakly, 'why is nothing done about it? Do your folk have no punishment for those who kill?'
'No proof,' Ristin said heavily. 'But I am not the only one who thinks it so. There is Missa, Elsa's mother. She dares not speak, for fear Kuoljok would be driven to do something. He has not been the same since the death. Stina and Lasse suspect him, as do Heckram and I. But the herdlord is blind to Joboam's faults, and will not even ...'
Ristin's voice ran down, and she turned to Kari apologetically. 'I did not mean to criticize your father, Kari. I forgot to whom I spoke.'
'Too many forget to speak at all. To whisper the truth is better than to not speak it at all. I take no offense, Ristin. If I thought I could make my father hear, I would scream it to him myself. But his ears are closed.' Kari's voice was bitter, and brought no reply from the other two.
Tillu sat silent, too many thoughts whirling through her head to make sense of any of them. It seemed possible that Joboam had beaten Elsa to death, and no one had spoken out against him. Kari had dropped enough hints that she thought she knew what Joboam had been able to 'make her do' when she was a child. And Carp was using his strange influence over Kari to pull her ever farther from the normal paths of life. Kerlew was likely dead; or so Ristin believed. And her own ambivalence toward Heckram was not as secret as she thought; his mother at least had sensed it. The food she had eaten was a sodden lump in the pit of her stomach, and she felt drugged with exhaustion.
Into the midst of the fire-light and silence. Carp came stumping. He sighed noisily as he eased himself down onto the skins, conveying both weariness and satisfaction. 'I need food,' he announced to no one in particular. Ristin and Tillu exchanged glances.
Neither one spoke nor moved. But Kari was unmindful of them as she rose to fetch cakes and soup for the old man. He took it from her without thanks, and sipped at the stew noisily. He smacked his pale tongue against his gums and remaining teeth and sighed again. 'It's all been arranged,' he said with smug satisfaction.
Kari fell into the trap. 'What has?'
He gave her a scathing look. 'Women. Always babbling and prying. The work of a najd is not for you to ask about, girl. Bring me some water.'
'Let him get it himself,' Tillu cut in angrily. His manner rasped on her like sand against a wound.
'There speaks an ungrateful woman. What does she care about her son, or the one who will bring him safely home to her? Oh, she likes to mope and drag about, so that all will pity her for her loss, but when one does something to bring the boy back, does she thank him? No, she will not even fetch him a simple dipper of water.'
Instead of maddening her, the words only made her weary. She ignored him, didn't watch Kari as she rose to get him a drink. To Ristin she said, 'I think I will sleep now. I want to thank you for your hospitality this night. And for making me understand things I had not known before.'
'What things?' Carp instantly demanded.
'Only women's natterings. Nothing to interest a najd.' Ristin assured him blandly. In spite of her sorrows, Tillu felt a small smile twitch the corners of her mouth. She liked this Ristin. She found the bundle that held her sleeping skins, and took them to the far side of the shelter, as far from Carp as she could get without leaving Ristin's hospitality.
She unrolled the hides and rolled herself up in one. The spring nights were getting warmer. But it would still be cold for a boy out alone in the dark. She tried to push the thought from her mind and sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Tillu did sleep, her dreams were of cold dark places, where wolverines snarled at her from cracks in shattered cliffs and moldering bones pushed greenly from the earth. Tillu wandered in a long ravine she could not climb out of, her feet sinking into freezing mud. The passage was narrow, and she could barely avoid the wolverines as they lunged at her from their lairs. She tried to run, but terror folded her legs limply beneath her. She dragged herself on, moving so slowly that she knew she would never escape. Far away, someone called her name.
Then someone took her shoulder and tugged at her, pulling her free. She awoke to cold hands on her arms, and Kerlew tugging at her. She clutched at him wordlessly.
Only now, when the pain of loss stopped, could she comprehend how bad it had been.
The boy yelped as she hugged him and struggled against her, but she didn't care. His skin was so cold, his clothing soaked with dew.
'Oh, it's warm in here!' he suddenly exclaimed, and burrowed into her sleeping hides and pulled them around himself. The cold night slapped Tillu, but she laughed. As she reached for another hide one fell over her. Heckram knelt down stiffly beside them, to tuck the hides more closely around Kerlew.
'Are you asleep already?' he asked softly, but the boy didn't answer. He chuckled quietly. 'I guess he'll be fine.'
Tillu reached up to grip his cold hand. He looked down and swayed slightly where he knelt. 'I'm so tired,' he said, as if it were all the explanation she needed.
'And cold.' She sat up as she spoke and wrapped her sleeping hide around his shoulders. He sank down beside Kerlew. 'Do you want something hot to drink?' she asked.
He nodded, rubbing his face with both hands. 'I haven't slept since the last time I saw you.' His voice was hollow with weariness. He spoke softly, and the others in the shelter never stirred. Tillu moved to the fire, to poke up the embers and add a little water to the soup left in the pot.
'I went back over the trail. At firs
t I didn't call, because I didn't want to alert Joboam.
I don't mind trouble with Joboam, but I didn't want it to delay me just then. So I went back a long ways through the dark as quietly as I could. I figured that if Kerlew were in sight of the campfires, he would find his way to the camp. When I couldn't see the fires anymore, I began to call. No answer and no sign of the boy.' He paused for a tremendous yawn, and to scratch at his tousled hair. Tillu stirred the soup and waited impatiently for it to heat.
'I went all the way back, to where I had last seen him. I thought that he would be somewhere between there and the camp. But I was wrong.'
'What?'
'I had to wait for dawn, but as soon as there was light. I looked for his trail. There wasn't much to go on, so many had passed that way. I decided to watch both sides of the trail for signs of anyone leaving it. I didn't have hope of finding much. A barefoot boy doesn't leave much mark on the land.' Heckram's voice ran down. Silence fell.
'Are you asleep?' Tillu asked softly.
'Mmm? Oh. No. Thinking. I'm too cold to sleep yet. No. Kerlew didn't leave much of a trail. All I could do was guess which tracks were his. They seemed to follow the trail.
Then I came to where a laden rajd had left the caravan and stood for awhile. Their tracks were sunk deep in the moss. And a big man had been leading them. His sign was plain, also.'
'Joboam.' Tillu wasn't asking.
'So I guessed, and so Kerlew told me when I found him. He had been hurrying up the caravan, and had come to Joboam relieving himself. And he told Kerlew that if he was looking for you, he was going the wrong way. He said you and Kari were off the trail looking for plants. So Kerlew looked where he pointed, and set off that way. To nowhere.'
Tillu felt cold. 'Maybe Joboam had seen us off the trail. Kari and I walk well to either side of it, to get plants that have not been grazed or trampled.' Her voice faltered to a halt. She glanced over at Heckram. He lay on his side, staring at her with red-rimmed eyes.
'You, too,' he said in soft accusation. 'I don't know why everyone refuses the truth about Joboam. He tried to kill your son, Tillu. Just as surely as if he had beaten him to death.'
She dipped a spoon into the soup and tested it against her lip. It was warm enough.
She scooped up a mugful and crossed softly among the sleeping folk. Heckram leaned up on one elbow to take it from her. He wrapped his cold fingers around the mug, glad of the warmth, and drank it down as if it were not hot at all. He set the empty mug off the spread skins, and then rolled back to face Tillu. She knelt between him and Kerlew, one hand resting on the boy as he slept. It was so good to touch him, to know where and how he was. Heckram gave a sudden shudder of cold. Without thinking about it, she took a hide from the floor and tucked it closely around him. She sat between the two, touching her boy and staring at the man.
'Perhaps,' she said, 'we are all afraid that if we believe these things about Joboam, we will have to do something about him. And what we might do might make us no better than he.'
'Capiam should act,' Heckram muttered. 'We call him herdlord. Why doesn't he behave as one?'
'Perhaps he doesn't want to believe he could have a man like that among his folk.'
'Whether he wants to believe it or not, it's true. I told him what I knew when Elsa was killed. Instead of looking into it, he became angry with me. As if I were the cause of it. Joboam could not stand that Elsa had chosen me over him. He hamstrung Bruk. He battered Elsa. And now he has tried to do away with Kerlew. What will it take to convince Capiam?'
Tillu had no answer. Despite his anger, Heckram's eyes were sagging shut. 'I'm so tired,' he muttered. 'I wanted to get here sooner. When Kerlew gave out, I carried him until he could walk again. He's a game little man. He never complained of being cold or hungry.' His eyes were closed now, his words slurred so that she could barely understand them. 'When I found him,' he said, and she leaned close to hear, 'he was hunkered down in a little hollow, like an abandoned nestling. He wasn't looking for the trail or calling or crying. He was just sitting with his legs folded and his arms wrapped around himself. He was shaking with cold. He looked up and saw me and said, 'I knew you'd come for me, brother wolf.' He wasn't surprised at all.'
'Thank you.' The words seemed small. She wanted to say more, but didn't know what it was she needed to say. He was sleeping now, anyway. Wasn't he? 'Heckram?'
His eyes didn't open. But he lifted the edge of the sleeping hide and held it open for her. She hesitated. But he did not clutch at her. He only held it up and waited. Every muscle in her body was tense as she crawled in beside him. His heavy arm fell across her, drawing her close until she rested against him. He seemed not to notice her stiffness. 'I've been so cold,' he said. His beard was against her forehead. 'I thought I'd never feel warm again.'
She drew in a deep breath, and found she could relax. He smelled of sweat and reindeer and life. 'Me, too,' she said quietly. She settled against him and put her hand on his chest, feeling the steady movement of his breathing. Behind her, Kerlew muttered in his sleep and twitched deeper into his covers. He was safe, and she could rest now. They were all safe. She felt her eyes sagging shut and let them. Beside her, Heckram slept.
Tillu awoke to spring rain drumming on the shelter roof, and someone tugging her arm. Pirtsi had her elbow and was shaking it like a dog worrying a rabbit. She jerked her arm free of him and sat up groggily. She didn't want to be awake. Sleep had been a warm, deep place without problems. She was comfortable, her son was safe, and it was early yet. There was time to sleep a little longer, to savor the warmth of Heckram's body close to hers, to enjoy the peace of knowing Kerlew was safe.
'Ketla's sick!' Pirtsi hissed frantically. 'You've got to come right away. Now!'
Tillu rubbed her face, feeling her skin come alive again. She gazed around sleepily.
Everyone else still slept. Why was he bothering her? Pirtsi crouched by her. His eyes darted from Heckram to Kerlew, but his curiosity could not match his mission's importance. He only repeated, 'Ketla's sick!'
The meaning finally penetrated her mind. 'I'm coming,' she hissed back. It wasn't even dawn, only the long dark-gray false dawn of spring and summer. Heckram stirred as she took the warmth of her body from his. She had been pressed against the length of his side, and he muttered grumpily at the touch of cold. She pushed the cover down snugly to take her place and touched Kerlew briefly as she stepped over him. He slept deeply, unaware of her passage.
'Hurry!' Pirtsi whisper-screeched.
'Calm down!' Tillu commanded in a low voice. 'And tell me what's wrong so I know what to bring.'
'Capiam awoke me. Her moaning had wakened him. Her skin is hot, but she complains she is cold, no matter how we wrap her. She says her head aches; she weeps from the pain, and cries out if we make the least sound.'
Tillu sloshed water over her hands and face. She smoothed her damp hair away from her face. 'Does she vomit? Is her stomach tender?'
'No ... I don't think so. I don't know! I came away as quickly as I could to fetch you.'
'I will want a bucket of fresh, cold water. Run and fetch it and bring it to Capiam's shelter.'
She did not watch him race away. The boy was more human in his fear than she had ever seen him before. But even as she selected willow bark and root, and reindeer moss, dried goldenrod and yarrow, burdock roots from the dwindling supply gathered last autumn, and long dandelion roots still crisp and fresh, she wondered at Capiam's blindness. Who could look at that boy and see him as a mate for Kari? Kari would as soon take a dog. She shook her head and sighed as she stood. Half the problems she treated were brought on by the victim's own foolishness. Ketla had probably eaten too much, or perhaps eaten spoiled meat. The willow bark, and perhaps—she paused to dig through her herbs—some of the inner bark of the black spruce would take care of the fever and headache. A tonic of some of the other herbs would wash out whatever was troubling her. Or so Tillu hoped.
She arrived at Capiam's shelter ju
st as Pirtsi did, his bare legs splashed with water where his hurry had sloshed it from his buckets. The panting boy followed her in.
The domed tent looked as if it had never been moved. The same rich hides coated the floor, the same tools and cheeses hung from the arching tent supports. The shelter was warm, but Capiam was putting more fuel on the fire. In one shadowed area, Rolke slept on, unmindful of his mother's distress. Tillu had no doubt of her discomfort. The smell of her labored sweat stained the air, and her low moans came and went with every breath. Blankets had been heaped atop her until her form was barely discernible.
Capiam rose as Tillu entered, and stepped hastily out of her way to allow her to kneel by the woman's side.
Setting down her pack, she asked abruptly, 'How long has she been this way?'
'I ... ' Capiam made a helpless gesture. 'At first, last night, when we lay down to sleep, she complained of the cold. So I covered her with an extra hide. But her body was giving off so much heat, I could not sleep beside her. And still she said she was cold, so I brought her more hides. And then she slept, for most of the night. I woke up, not long ago, when she started moaning. Her skin is so hot, but she keeps on shivering. ...' His words mired down in his helplessness, and he fixed Tillu with a pleading glance. She turned from him to Ketla.
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